


Love, Interrupted

by lucipherous



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28605792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucipherous/pseuds/lucipherous
Summary: It was evening when he saw her. Just across the market place against the backdrop of the hazy sun, which lingered so delicately along the brim of a sunhat she currently toyed with, scrunching her nose at the price tag and pressing the rough material between her slim fingers. She was there. And he'd never been more terrified.
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm new to this site, but not this story. I began this story several years ago and after a brief hiatus where I, well, started and graduated from college, I'm back and hellbent on finishing it. Hopefully, there are some readers here who will love it as much as I do.

It was evening when she saw him.

The morning brought the smell of a world washed away by yesterday's rain and the birds shook the remnants of the past with a fluff of their silken feathers. Droplets fell from tree leaves as if the beings themselves shivered from the sun's reluctant rising. White mist clung to the pale glow on the horizon, and Sakura brushed her hair while watching the world stir.

Tracing her fingertips along the ground to catch the grass's dew, she rubbed her eyes with the wet earth and contemplated the day's callings. Today was the day to settle. Today was the day to find her own place.

The sun watched her stow away her travel supplies for what she hoped to be the last time. Shards of grass clung to her smooth ankles and she refrained from batting them away just to relish in the simplicity. The normalcy. The kunoichi couldn't remember the last time she had felt so utterly human.

A quick wash in a nearby river and fresh change of clothes only helped to lighten the mood. The air was sweet, the sunshine gentle, and the earth seemed to hum along to the songs she mused in her mind. The clink of her kunai belt against her hipbone was the only thing to remove her head from the clouds.

It seemed a rare occurrence these days that missions brought her anything but headaches. She'd enjoy the spare moments with just herself and the sun and the leaves and the crisp morning air. She'd forgotten, if just for a moment, that her sense of security was nothing more than a symptom. A detail, unnecessary, that had more to do with her surroundings than with her mindset. The bitter truth grounded her like an anchor, and absently she tucked her shoulder-length hair behind the shell of her ear, pondering the morning rituals of other, more energetic peoples.

Since the end of the war three years previous, the fire and spirit that Sakura once held for missions seemed to have vacated her body along the route to victory. Where there was once a thrill and passion to serve her country now lay a barren plain of dark memories, all ready for harvest at the flick of the wrist. Occasionally she would relish in her own somber habits, biting into the sour fruit of her many years labor. The war was never really "won." Not when so many were lost in the forests and the tunnels and the fires. Sakura thought of Neji, his kind white eyes roaming appreciatively over the taijutsu poses in which he tutored her, the silken nature of his unbound hair when she'd find him sprawled, flat-backed on the wooden floor of his home during a session of his rather eccentric meditation. She recalled his gentle laugh, which he often hid. His fondness for the time just before sunrise when wetness still filled the air before settling on the ground. The warmth beyond his strength, the honesty within his testaments, the honor of his love.

Others trailed the Hyuuga. Chouji, always an underdog of sorts. Kiba, who protected Akamaru to the bitter end and took an axe to the back just so his companion wouldn't have to suffer in that way; so the young man himself would never have to know a day without his best friend by his side. TenTen, although she'd died in a different way, left to wither with both legs disabled and a heart that could never fully heal from the loss of her white-eyed companion. Shikamaru had eloped long ago to Suna to raise a little girl that Temari left in her wake, her paternal heritage still unknown and unbreached. Ino, alone. Hinata, still so quiet and fret with nerves. The rest of Rookie Nine that remained pedaled along as well as they could, baring the bitterness of the days and the winds of slow, struggling change. Life in Konoha never grew back as sweet as she'd remembered before being destroyed by the war. And so she pushed on, not because her will propelled her but because what other choice would she have? Die, and leave Naruto with another wasted life to haunt his remaining days? She couldn't. For him, she proceeded with every meager second that ticked by. Naruto alone lent her the power to crawl on, and she would not - could not undermine that privilege.

And so it was that such valiance to live on was rewarded by her most cherished teacher, Kakashi-sensei, who'd tagged on a three-week "investigation period" to a B-rank mission already overdramatized by the weight of its ranking. A need for a vacation was evident. Upon her return Sakura swore she would find a way to thank the mysterious old man.

The mission: to gather information on a travelling faction of unmarked shinobi withholding some sort of contraband ripped from its roots in Iwagakure. Supposedly an elderly decrepit woman resided in some small town along the border of Fire and Rock, the grandson of whom may or may not be the suspected leader of the thieving band in question. While normally Konoha would hardly bat an eye at the word of trouble stirring in Iwa, their new Tsuchikage, Kurotsuchi, still struggled to maintain the reigns on her people and military and practically begged Konoha for assistance. The grudge between Suna and Iwa still ran too deep for Gaara's shinobi to be of much help, and so Kakashi seized the opportunity for what it was.

It was a habit of hers to arrive early. The consultation with the elderly woman was scheduled for noon tomorrow and only now had day broken on the morning prior. Natural beauty taunted her from every direction, the world but a compass singing gentle songs from every letter upon its face. A waterfall flung mist above the canopies somewhere upriver, clouding out the eyes of birds and men and leaving them faceless in the undergrowth. Farther north, the grasses and waters gave out to the rocky terrain of Earth Country, and the east and west provided a horizon of verdurous foliage. Sakura wondered the condition of the villages that lay in these respective directions: of Grasses, Waterfalls, and Stones. She wondered at their structures and their economies and their peoples. She remarked, half-heartedly, if their villages held a single woman, just like her, surviving through the encouragements of others but still dying, slowly and surely, from the rampant disappointment concealed within themselves.

At 23, she could be doing more. Should be doing more. The hospital kept her for long periods of time without apology. Constantly the single monument stole away the time she'd intended to spend on other talents. Sakura had hoped to amount to some of the achievements adopted by her fallen brethren; she'd planned to do the things that Strong Sakura, Post-War Sakura was supposed to accomplish. Surpass Tokubetsu Jounin status and join ANBU, guide Naruto into dreams of Hokage, make Tsunade proud, shrink the degree of debt the hospital owed and the mortality rate both simultaneously and exponentially. Fall in love. Father children to a man that didn't haunt the fragile structure of her childhood. Visit Dad more, before he got sick, but ultimately still don't visit enough once the beans were spilled. Not be late to the funeral. Act surprised when her mother grew too weak to go on and then practiced old fire jutsus with carelessness, landing her in her own grave. Remark on the normalcy of life as a village hero, tailed eternally by the village idiot. The kunoichi failed at all of these self-assigned tasks to some varying degrees, but she recognized that regardless of their individual severities, the outcome remained the same: she was not the Sakura that was meant to be.

Dissatisfaction was second nature to her now. In the morning she ate her egg whites with a grimace, took her evening jogs with the beginning of a bad mood stirring in her abdomen. Hinata had taught her the word for this - Altschmerz. The same insecurities and problems and flaws that gnawed at her even in her genin days, following her into adulthood and knotting the muscles she spent years trying to detangle. The dainty-voiced Hyuuga had whispered to her the diagnosis while the two friends sipped habitually on cups of steaming oolong. Her petal pink hair had drooped in response to the explanation, as if the fibers of her body had tried so long to resist blowing their cover. And with a single word the strength gave out, the will to pretend that victory had no consequences. That broken hearts would mend in time if she just waited a little longer, a little longer. That late at night when she turned her back on progression and stared into the overcasting midnight, remembering when the grass she walked upon stained her ankles red, pretending she didn't think about a dark-eyed young man, alone, stalking through the wilderness. That all of it, the culmination of all the things that future was supposed to be but wasn't, didn't hurt her more every day.

The final clasp of her pack echoed off the bark of a nearby tree. The weight of her belongings along the muscles of her back felt comforting. She pondered a more nomadic life as she picked her way back into the wispy forest that clung to the riverside, deciding that it wouldn't hurt to spend the daytime washing her clothes with too much care and relishing in a pleasant brand of loneliness.

Maybe she didn't deserve this vacation. But even if she hadn't yet earned it, as the water slithered along rocks and jumped to splash against her bare calves, she realized how much she needed this.

It was evening when he saw her.

The day was uncrowded. He'd stuck to some traditional training, chopped down a dead tree or two a few yards behind his small, isolated home in the midst of the woods, tidied some hedges on the south side of his property and then strolled lazily into downtown, barely five miles east, favoring the dark silt that crumbled into a haphazard, narrow road over the blushing sunset. For the sake of something to do, he whispered his grocery list to himself over and over, until it was engrained - although it never really changed from visit to visit.

Tomatoes, rice, tuna, nori, dashi, fish paste.

Tomatoes, rice, tuna, nori, dashi, fish paste.

He grunted as he approached the edge of the marketplace, lights gradually flickering to life to wade off the oncoming night. The sandals somehow seemed more constricting on his feet when he remembered that he'd need more than his normal supply on this particular afternoon.

Flour, eggs, sugar, cream, berries.

Retrieving the items remained easy enough. Store owners recognized and respected Sasuke's preference for silent exchanges, polite nods, terse greetings. A loyal customer is a loyal customer, and they were willing to treat him the right way if it meant consistent patronage. Fewer women gawked at him than before, when he was younger and his face told less stories. Dark hair fell flatter and longer against the slopes of his angular face, eyes filled with ink but more open, in a way. After so many years of hiding, the possibility of being discovered seemed slim. It occurred to him that search parties on his behalf probably ceased long ago. Every part of the young shinobi's being felt so withered from such tireless escape, always moving at neck-break speed to avoid capture.

After defeating Itachi, all he thought he really needed was some time to think. Some time to himself. He was lonesome by nature - they knew this, all of the Leaf shinobi that hunted him for assorted reasons. Sasuke just wanted a little break, a little rest, a little complacency after murdering his own flesh and blood. But his behavior had been ruthless and misleading, he knew this now. Hindsight is always 20/20, and Sasuke spends as little time as he can manage from dwindling on thoughts of the past. It aged him, he knew, and the weariness that brushed the skin around his eyes was more telling now. He couldn't risk settling, couldn't risk in actually relishing in the thought of true freedom.

Nine months ago when he wondered for the first time since he'd first left Konoha if they had finally given up on bringing him home, he broke down in the kitchen, a sliced lemon in his hand. He cried for hours out of some mixture of relief and sorrow and anguish and pure, unadulterated joy. The townspeople looked through his eyes when he spoke, focused on other things and musings; young women smiled politely in his direction if they caught his eye upon them in the street but never anything more. Children continued to play and kick and laugh and scream even as the dark shadow of his silhouette glided by on the street. Sasuke had never felt so relieved to be no one.

Gathering the last of his new perishables, the amiable young man turned heel and paced calmly back the way he came.

And then, she was there.

Just across the market place against the backdrop of the hazy sun, which lingered so delicately along the brim of a sunhat she currently toyed with, scrunching her nose at the price tag and pressing the rough material between her slim fingers. Her hair brushed her nape under the conquest of a gentle wind and he could feel the winding of his Sharingan as he soaked in the splash of freckles on the bridge of her nose, the violet diamond hovering at the apex of her forehead, the gait with which she swayed against the horizon. And in that moment in which he stilled, in which he observed her just feet from his own more matured body, he knew she would see him. Her observation had always been keen and now he just waited, seconds turning into millennia until his whole world was captured between a set of strawberry-blonde eyelashes, drowning him in the only shade of green he could never truly forget and yet hardly remembered.

Sasuke doesn't say a word and neither does she. How could they? How could either of them do anything but stand interlocked in a situation so improbable, so completely impossible that for the first time in his life Sasuke considered slapping himself out of what could only most certainly be a dream? His character still remained cold and calculating at the core, but the years of loneliness, of travelling and running and hiding sat heavy atop his shoulders and at the sight of Sakura, of real, tangible Sakura, they leapt towards her familiarity. The air stilled in his lungs. She, too, simply watched, her arms frozen above her head as her fingers locked gently on the lithe fabric of the sunhat, neither party aware of the indifference with which the townspeople carried on around them.

Slowly she breaks eye contact, returning her attention to the elderly man stooped in front of her with eyes brimming with a fragile sheen of hope. The kunoichi smiles as if to reassure and her eyes crinkle in what he knows is politeness but what others would label as sincere joy, then gingerly returns the hat into the vendor's open palms. Maybe out of nerves or habit, she shuffles her sturdy nails through the bulk of her bangs, correcting them, and sidesteps the vendor before shifting her gaze to Sasuke once more.

To flee and never look back, to speak, to attack, to wait. The options pool into bottom of his throat and he wishes he could swallow without the fear of implying his nervousness. He hopes desperately that his face remains studious and distant under the attention of her eyes that are so alive of color and emotions that he forgot how to recognize years and years ago. And he still can't move. And he still can't speak. And he while he is mostly stunned he also feels the beginnings of fear pooling in the center of his stomach, afraid that the years of isolation and self-reconstruction he'd fought for over and over were inevitably destroyed by what appeared as a complete, asinine accident.

A wind chime sings in the breeze and the two shinobi continue to stare, their gazes occasionally flickering with the impeding body of a passerby. Sasuke hears the chatter of local merchants and the shrill laughter of children and the lazy guitar of a young woman sitting streetside, blue smoke curling from her mouth. He muses for a moment that he may have never been so aware of his surroundings in his entire life, and the potential threat to this lifestyle to which he has become so acclimated has all of the hairs on his arms standing and every muscle in his body on edge. He could pounce. He could kill her where she stands in the street with the kunai he always keeps strapped in the band of his pants. The possibilities raced, jutsus at his fingertips and illusions burning at the back of his eyes. Just a single movement from the kunoichi and he would leap, he would do attack to save himself.

Sakura glances away for just a moment at the shout of some group of males jesting over a round of sake, or perhaps at the repeated jostling of the wind chimes in the window of a storefront. Her gaze steadies there, to the left of Sasuke's tensing form, only for a handful of moments before she turns back to stare at him: fearlessly, wholeheartedly, purposefully.

And then, just as his calves tense up to pounce and the muscles in his forearms tense to grab the pale skin of her throat, Sakura turns and walks away.


	2. Chapter 2

Vanilla-scented air wafted through the otherwise stifling space of Sasuke's house, lingering in the corners of the kitchen and hovering pointedly about the tip of his nose. On its own, without the added pressure of his unexpected run-in with a kunoichi from his distant past, today was a difficult day to bear, especially alone. Arms crossed and shoulders tensed, he stared dejectedly at the composed, two-tier cake perched atop the counter, still without icing. Sasuke found himself contemplating the vulnerability and potential stupidity of his actions, as he did every year since he began this tradition.

The cake was delicately browned and scents of springtime and nostalgic celebrations burst through its porous skin as the young nukenin watched, patience dancing along the tightropes of his nerves, the steam gradually drifting away, moisture occasionally gathering at the bridge of his nose as he waited. Usually he was less patient to finish the day's task, but he had no other excuses to keep him from the world outside, where those townspeople that had crept into the cracks of his shell and absorbed grains of knowledge about his tendencies and his conflicts expected his quiet visits under the yellow wash of evening. They knew the fragile sentiment of this day; they knew this habit as more of a lament than a celebration.

Yuri would wait calmly behind the counter of her small storefront and would smile with kindness as he self-consciously delivered her the fruit of his labor, and yet even with such gentle reception he would rub the blushing skin of his neck while rows of beautiful, intricate pastries gawked back at him. Yuri would make small talk, Sasuke would be perceptive without being revealing (as best as he could, anyway, with his defenses crumbling more every year), and then he would go to the creek at the top of the hill and sit; not to pray, not to weep, not to remember, but just to be.

He leaned to retrieve the metal tool required from a bowl of warm water, the name for which he'd never learned but the trick remained in his mind since the meals and desserts of his childhood. His fingers twitched along the hilt as they reflectively prepared for the stinging aura of his kusanagi, a habit that was an unpleasant reminder of many things. He wasn't fighting. Just icing a cake.

The warmth of the metal allowed for a smoother application, and as the icing coated the cake's surface a tinge of lemon twirled through the air and drifted into the cavern of his lungs. The instinct to perform all actions perfectly grew deep within the pit of his stomach, anxiety curdling as the roots spread through his body. Every year he'd wonder if Yui would reject his creation. He imagined her pert nose crinkling in distaste, the motherly smile adorning her face sinking into a grimace. He imagined his failure, forthcoming in its own right, inevitable. And yet the pale golden topping continued to glide almost comically before his eyes, as smooth as a swan sailing across a pond. His foolishness felt heavy in his lungs. Sasuke wondered absently if he could ever abandon his critical nature; surely he'd live longer if it were ever so.

His hands made quick work of the berries, slicing away their leafy heads and placing them flesh-down on the pristine surface stilled beneath his gaze, barren and yellow like a field of unswaying sunflowers, sloping gently at the sides and circling over and over in the fold of its perfect wholeness, and for a moment he wrestled to recall if these whimsical, useless thoughts stained the tissues of his mind in this way every year, with petulant frequency and depth. Refocusing, he tussled a nest of cut strawberries in his palm. They'd litter the outer two rings, then raspberries, then a single line of blackberries in the very center, and then, a small space equivalent to the circumference of his thumbprint. The shinobi shuffled through a nearby drawer for a few moments, fingers finally landing on the waxy, corded structure of a candle. Carefully he placed the little thing in the single hole he'd left in the center, then sported a meek frown as he lit the wick with a flame from his pointer finger.

For a minute he simply stared as the wax slid along the side of the candle, only blowing out the flame when the melted droplets grew too close to the surrounding fruits. He fumbled with the knife for a final time, fixing a plump strawberry over the miniscule hole left by the body of the candle. The fruit's juice stained the rough skin of his hand a shade of pink that made his throat grow dry, but he shook the feeling from his mind before tension crept in in its wake. Thinking of her now would be disrespectful.

But pictures continued to flicker in the swarm of his kekkei genkai, a numbing beat of the shuttering features of the kunoichi he'd long forgotten. Apprehension thickened the walls of his throat at the thought of startled emerald eyes - were they startled, truly, with the same coloring depth of his own shock? Her lips did not quiver under his gaze, nor did her cheek twitch, and as his mind grasped further for the precise shade of her iris as the luster of mild astonishment glossed the whole of them he felt the distinct sensation of loss still the muscles of his chest, for even now he could not quite recall the very makings of the stare that quelled him so.

A sudden eagerness to revisit the street melting against the sunset puddled somewhere at the apex of his spine, a cool dribbling of cruel veneration of that petal-haired woman, whose image slipped farther from his mind with every passing moment. Had she already fled the area? Another fleeting, impractical reflection wandering unwelcome into his head, one destined for the head of a man with more sense and less responsibilities.

The dark-haired young man wiped the proof of his work from his scarred hands and gathered the cake in his arms, the glass stand supporting it magnifying the heat that remained onto his palms. He freed a single hand to open and close the door, now behind him, his sandals already hugging the rough skin of his ankles, not bothering to lock the entrance to his house. She would not track him here, he remarked through his internal resistance.

Sasuke glanced at the rosy horizon of the year's first June morning, then dropped his gaze back to the glistening face of his creation. Carefully descending the stairs, a slow sigh fell from his lips.

"Happy birthday, Kaasan."

Sakura sat almost painfully still at the peak of the hill she'd occupied on the morning before, eyes unable to close, staring at nothing. Sleep was not becoming of her in general (as a girl she'd suffered numerous night terrors), but she'd chosen to bow out of an attempt at rest. If she closed her eyes, she knew exactly what would look back at her - or rather, who would look back at her.

The thought that the man she'd spent so many years trying to forget breathed only yards away from her bubbled ominously in the pit of her throat, drowning her lungs in a concoction of emotions that were unidentifiable but totally unpleasant. Sickly she pondered if Sasuke experienced the same sensations of terror and disgust.

Even in her haggard state she realized that a run-in with the shinobi that nearly destroyed her many years work could not deter her from the purpose of her stay; both her mission and her 'vacation' still required completion. After obtaining any information from the elderly woman awaiting her arrival, Sakura supposed she could transfer her free time to a place with less red-eyed, ice-hearted shinobi that glared at her in the street. Her gut twisted at the memory of his face and her hands brushed her arms, as if to scrub away the all the places his eyes had touched her skin.

The kunoichi wished his face had belonged to another. She longed for the rage that accompanied the image she'd painted of him over the years, to which she deflected her anger when nights grew so dark that all she could do to defend herself was sob until daybreak. She wanted to hate him. She wanted his fierceness to cord through the bulk of his muscles, for his despair to overwhelm his remorse, for the curve of his mouth to settle in a natural cruelness, a dismissing sneer that all the town would come to know and despise. The Sasuke she envisioned held hatred in his heart and blood on his hands. He was a monster. A monster that remained long dead to her.

But then he wasn't.

The stony disposition that haunted her for years was in fact a face that paralleled her own fears. His features remained mostly slack, but beneath the youth and the apathy that colored his pallet pulsed worry and desperation and the look of a caged animal, all both at the sight of her pink locks shifting about her bare shoulders. His emotional standing seemed to have slackened with his absence; his lips slightly agape in shock, a lump of disbelief lodged in his Adam's apple, his fingers fluttering nervously over the paper bags in his grasp. Her incredulity was palpable, she guessed. After all these years, the last emotion she dreamed Sasuke holding towards her person was legitimate fear.

Sakura was uncertain of how this dread at the sight of her person affected her, especially when it sprouted from the very man who had instilled so many of her own insecurities. A sense of pride often surged through her heart at the expression of surprise and panic that graced an opponent's features once they'd witnessed her strength or suffered firsthand the wrath of the taijutsu she'd mastered. The kunoichi had never outgrown her daintiness, a fact made clear by the company she kept only at vague intervals, those closer to her aware that her gentle appearance relayed none of her talents as a ninja. Strangers barely blinked in her direction and often only made to double-take at her garish pink hair. The array of unexpectation and shock on an enemy's face brought Sakura a warm satisfaction; however, such an emotion sent in her direction whilst off the battlefield brought repulsion to her lips and discomfort in her chest. Instilling fear was unbecoming of the kind-hearted young woman, even in the dull state that presently swallowed her.

Even as she remained perched on the grassy hilltop, a sunset past and a sunrise upon her, Sakura could not pinpoint the motivation that drove her away from Sasuke's sudden presence in front of her. But she saw the dismay within the depths of his eyes, even as they spun to the crimson hue she learned to dread, and it terrified her. So she ran.

At first her steps were evenly paced, balanced and calm and even and all that she wanted, needed in that moment. Portraying her as a woman unperturbed. But with each step she stole away from the shinobi at her back, the corners of the world seemed to sweep inwards, blurring the edges of her vision and flipping her psyche to totter on its side.

After rounding the first corner chakra surged instinctively into her calves, every muscle aching and begging to run farther, faster, away from what could only be a mistake. Thoughts flitting between the walls of her mind, Sasuke's face echoing with every pulse of her heart and every rush of air in her bloodstream. Wildly and hopelessly she sprinted towards the beginning of her day, her nin-pack and bedroll and scrolls rebounding against the coiled muscles of her back with each step. Foolishly Sakura reigned in her tears, desperately refraining from the retching sobs that beckoned her.

Itching to roam the hillside and amble her musings with the scrape of her feet, the kunoichi collected herself to embark on her brief course to the elderly woman with whom she held an appointment. A breeze churned about her legs at the anticipation of spotting Sasuke somewhere on a street, staring with the identical incredulity as the night prior.

The taste of progress, crumbling, exploded in her mouth and dripped into the bottom of her lungs, each pump of her foot pushing her farther away from the picture of Sasuke but closer to the cracking dam stirring internally. So many years cloaked in the sensation of hollow anguish, regret tinting every day a shade darker than she remembered, starving her mind of his face and his smell and him. The way he'd called her name at the nape of her neck, thanking her in that mocking tone, the glimpses of his stature as it matured in adolescence and omnipotence. All the torturous thoughts she'd buried in the space between her bones, coddled in the grip of her ribcage as if to shield her heart from her own sick sense of memoriam.

Sakura had crawled, knees bloody and bare, spirit broken, to the quarantine state that sanctioned her mind from all thoughts of the dark shinobi a mere yards from her. Pictures destroyed, memories tarnished and self-altered, hope abandoned. For longer than possible to recall her encouragement to grow stronger drew from the determination to erase Sasuke from her mind. The image matched the reputation: a nukenin who was deserving of the phrases spat in his direction, a man who'd never again know the song of a friend's heart or the comfort of a woman's arms. A savage. A criminal. A traitor.

And it wasn't fair, this young, petrified man she'd discovered in the street of a town that held no ill towards the kunoichi's oblivious existence. The near-decade of training, emotional and physical, all shattered in the wake of pure accidental occurrences.

Her reflections drove her to some sort of distraction, so she shifted to remove the smooth paper of her mission scroll, which sat dutifully in her palm. Responsibility as a tangible object always felt lighter than Sakura imagined it should be, what with the millions of consequences spread upon the ground, bombs buried in the silt and earth of choices, reactions. The ink scrawled upon the surface caressed only the shades of her still irises, unable to reach past her eyes into more thoughtful places.

Yuri. No other name followed or preceded, nor did the scroll disclose the usual implications of personality, habits, preceding reputations. Elderly, around sixty-five years of age, no documented shinobi training on record. Widow of twenty years, mother of a pair of fraternal twins, a girl and boy, both in their late thirties now. Both nameless, according to the shinobi who'd done the background check, a fact that seemed exceptionally strange to Sakura. The girl was a mute that worked humbly in the kitchen of her mother's bakery along the downtown strip. Also assumed to reside either in her mother's home or in the garden keep on the edge of her land. Palm-sized sketches, done in a sooty ink that reminded her warmly of Sai, donned the bottom left corner of the unrolled paper. Juxtaposed women regarded her below, harsh lines tinting their features in familial resemblance. Absently she wondered if they were close.

The shinobi assigned to prepare the summary of both parties struggled to grasp a clear standing on the subjects. All interactions and conversations held with those who knew both the woman and her disabled daughter proved fruitless and difficult; the locals seemed too perturbed to discuss either person, though it was unclear is such a silence came provoked by respect or wariness.

The storefront would remain closed until noon, at which time the bakery would assuredly be in full swing, workers passing by for a sweetness to numb the triteness of another day in the workplace. Distaste crept into the corners of her mouth. Puckering her lips in annoyance, Sakura wished for a time when she could not empathize with those who felt trapped by their professions. The shruiken pack crowding the bone of her hip grew heavier with such musings.

Hoping to avoid a scene with some oblivious patron, the kunoichi settled her ninpack between the slab of skin separating her shoulderblades, ready to embark on the dirt path that led back to town. Turi and her nameless child - Sakura wondered in the mute young woman truly had no name at all - would surely be preparing the day's produce, whisking flour, beating eggs, folding cream into chocolate. Interrupting, while not a personal pleasure, undoubtedly became a convenient talent over the years. Besides, she found that people were more honest when their hands remained focused on other tasks.

The scroll still draped on her left arm as she walked, Sakura read on. The male twin maintained adequate function but partook in delinquent activity. Neither children received training in the ninja arts, but even as a civilian child the young man collected an impressive resume of minor crimes. Twenty years ago, the young man impregnated a local farm girl, and together they tried, and often failed, to raise a compassionate son. His name was Koto.

The thieves meandering across the borders of Earth, Wind and Fire were lead by a young man, unidentified, with a wolverine face painted on a ceramic mask to serve as his identity. According to officials, this leader held substantial potential to be the current day job of the young Koto, who'd fled from home two years prior during his second round of agricultural training. The father had vanished when the young boy was ten, and his poor mother had little to say. The grandmother remained the only glimpse at a lead in the investigation, confirmed doubly by the unfortunate defects of the aunt.

Sakura met a mute young man once, a sixteen year old with peculiar green hair (she supposed she shouldn't judge considering she'd been victim to the same thoughts by others) and dark freckles dotting the planes of his cheekbones. He'd been a weapon specialist like TenTen, and his tranquil, involuntary silence made him appear rather intimidating. Lee had attempted to tell him an off-handed joke during a passing match that the other contenders observed, huddled together along the balcony of a viewing deck. The shinobi simply glanced back at Lee, nodded, and then returned his gaze to the duel.

As hard as she strained to picture his face again, Sakura could not recall ever seeing the same face a second time. Nor could she recall the village from which he hailed. Ghosting her fingers along the skin of her throat, she wondered if he survived the war. If so, she wondered if he, too, missed the joys of being a ninja. Given, of course, that he'd ever lost reverence for their profession in the first place.

Information gradually trickled into nothingness, the bottom of the scroll ending with Kakashi's haphazard signature. Lazily the kunoichi re-rolled the scroll and shoved the thing into the bulky pocket of her pack, swapping for a canteen and stooping to gulp languidly from the container, newly-full with the river water that bordered her sleep site. Purification jutsu left a mild bitterness within the water's molecules, but Sakura shrugged at its familiar bite. She'd had worse.

The cloud of dissatisfaction that hovered constantly about her head seemed to lift just an inch or so at the sight of the little town opening to welcome her.

"Little" was an unfair description; the village was sizable enough and perhaps comparable to certain parts of Konoha's marketplace, only absent of the sheer mass of land that characterized her home. Buildings of professional standing stooped low on block corners, winged by eateries and a town grocer and other various businesses serving different purposes.

Water funneled into a narrow channel that flower along the boardwalk, a long levy of patched grasses sloping the space between the sedimentary street and the creek. She wondered if she approached the water if she'd catch notes of lavender from her earlier bath on the hilltop, which she'd taken in restlessness. Such a frivolous thought brought a smirk to her dainty lips.

As expected, a "CLOSED" sign glinted against the morning light as she clamored onto the bakery's doorstep. Sakura rapped on the glass door once, then twice, louder, and by her fifth, most insistent knock, an elderly woman in a dusty frock emerged from a door within the store, face set in a line of what Sakura was sure to be unpleasantness.

The pink-haired kunoichi stepped back politely as to allow the woman to crack open the door. Impatience leaked into her every feature, including her voice.

"Miss, I don't suppose you're illiterate?" said the woman, pointing mockingly at the "CLOSED" sign. "I'm afraid we don't open for another two hours."

At least she retained some admirable attitude. Sakura respected that.

Flashing her identification badge and hitai-ate, which she wore on the loop of her black shorts, Sakura sang sweetly in response: Pardon me, Yuri-sama, in no way did I mean to inconvenience. My name is Haruno Sakura, I am a kunoichi of the Leaf. I was hoping to have a few words with you."

Yuri eyed her warily, then fumbled for a second to grasp a pair of glasses dangling at the apex of her covered breasts, face melting into a reserved astonishment after donning her specs. "Pink hair . . ." she mumbled.

Ignoring the comment, Sakura continued with her gentle disposition. "I wanted to stop by before your bakery opened to avoid stealing you away from your customers. Would you mind if I stepped inside to ask you a few questions?"

A little dumbfoundedly, Yuri shifted her weight off of the door frame and clumsily propped the door for Sakura to enter. She gave a slight bow upon entering, which Yuri returned hesitantly, then followed the elderly woman as she began to move back from where she'd come.

"You'll forgive me, I hope, for my earlier tone," Yuri said over a bony shoulder.

"It's quite alright, Yuri-sama. I'm used to such reactions," Sakura replied. "I am sure you are hard at work in the kitchen preparing for the day. Please do not allow my presence to be an imposition on your work."

Yuri turned to regard her fully, hand outstretched to balance her body against a gleaming display case. Only a single item stood inside, a rounded cake with rings of fresh berries on top. She admired its color, the icing a similar shade to a peeled, ripe banana, the alternating rings gleaming in the wash of sunshine pouring through the clear windows. A spot of perspiration gathered on the inside of the glass, a few degrees above the body of the cake.

"First one for the day?" the kunoichi asked, gesturing towards the cake as she moved to return her ID to her hip pocket. "It's very beautiful."

"Yes, just finished making it. I was in a rush to put it out before the others," responded Yuri, sounding peculiarly out of breath.

"Well, I may just have to buy a slice on the way out. The kitchen, Yuri-sama?" Sakura raised her chin towards a door a few feet from the older woman's back. With great reluctance the woman turned and resumed her walk back to her work. Sakura quickly sidestepped her and beat her to the door, opening it open chivalrously for Yuri as she hobbled through the doorway.

The air was immediately visible, clouds and particles dancing all over the room, sailing with every step on the wooden floor and bouncing off of the stained, peeling mint-green walls. A back door stood open to carry the dusty atmosphere outdoors into a back alley, and the accompanying sunlight threw waves of glittering sugar into the air. The room practically vibrated with the smell of sweets.

A woman hunched over a wad of dough, a halter dress tied about the back of her neck, back muscles flexing with the force of her kneading. An enormous bun of rich, crimson hair bobbed at the top of her head. She turned, not halting in her work, to observe her mother and the unexpected guest tailing her. The woman's eyes widened in something a little more than surprise, and the smoky green of her irises reminded Sakura absently of her mother.

Yuri turned to face Sakura briefly upon entering. "My daughter, Akami. She helps me in the shop; however she cannot speak, so I doubt she would be of any assistance in whatever brings you here." Sakura fixed the younger woman with a tight smile, uneased by the routine chakra scan she conducted on Akami. For now she'd speak with Yuri. The daughter, even in her unusualness, could wait.

"Pleased to meet you, Akami-san." The woman nodded in response. Glancing back towards Yuri, Sakura softened her grin. "Please, continue working. I don't believe I'll keep you for too long."

Yuri did as suggested, resuming work on a batch of square pastries lying unfinished on a large, wooden table. "What brings you to my shop, Haruno-san?"

"Well, I'm hoping you could be of some help," Sakura said with patient spirit. "Recently the neighboring shinobi villages have filed complaints against a travelling band of mercenaries. They've stolen some treasured artifacts from these villages and many people are desperate to have them returned." Yuri grunted in affirmation to acknowledge that she'd absorbed the kunoichi's words thus far, even if some of it had been unintentional retention.

"I've been sent on a mission to question some locals about potential suspects and members of this criminal group. They've yet to declare a name, but each member is masked in one way or another, usually in solid-color ceramic faces. However, the leader of the gang-" Sakura brushed the edge of a photo in the pocket of her shorts, removing it to pose delicately in front of the old woman's face, "-looks like this."

Yuri squinted even behind the thickness of her glasses, setting down a bowl of raspberry filling to lean closer to the outstretched object. Pictured was the profile of a wolverine-masked man clad in grey and black guard pads, a black flak jacket, and sporting a crown of copper hair.

Face unmoving, Yuri leaned back and resumed piping filling into the pastries. "Never seen him."

Sakura flipped the picture around, the masked man now facing her. "Our shinobi say he resembles the coloring and build of this young man. Does he seem more familiar?"

This time when the woman looked she was arrested into stillness. From the corner of her eye Sakura saw Akami steal a look in their direction, and also froze at the sight of the young man on the image.

"That's . . ." Yuri began, but after a moment the air seemed to fizzle senselessly from her mouth, unable to complete the sentence.

"Your grandson, Koto," Sakura finished.

Suddenly a slam echoed from the back of the room, causing Yuri to jump and Sakura to snap her head in the direction of the source, Akami had abandoned a wooden roller, which clanked twice more against the ground before falling still, and fled from the kitchen through the open back door. Sakura tensed with suspicion.

Quelling the kunoichi with a hand raised in protest, Yuri hardened into a defensive stance, but her face grew gentle.

"Please, could we speak another time? Perhaps at my home, without Akami around. She and Koto were very close, and she has been quite sensitive since he left." Desperation gleamed in her wise eyes, amplified by her thick glasses.

Sakura consciously relaxed her position, hoping to reassure the grandmother even as her mind raced with instinctive actions revolving around the daughter's escape. Yuri spoke again when the kunoichi remained silent.

"Really, please, I insist. I live on the beaten path behind the town bank, a few miles out. Past the flower field on the left, but if you hit the forest you've gone too far. It's a shack about an acre in. I keep it as tidy as I can," her volume rose as Sakura gradually shifted her gaze away from the door. "I promise I'll answer any questions you have then." She smiled a little desperately.

"You wouldn't hide something from me, Yuri-sama?" Sakura said patiently. "That would be a mistake."

"On my honor, I wouldn't. Truly. It's just been hard on her, on all of us," she said as she gestured towards the doorway.

Sakura nodded slowly. "Alright. I'll be over tomorrow evening, once the shop closes."

Yuri clasped her hands in gratitude and bowed. "I'll be there, I will." After a moment, she added: "On my honor."

After a handful of logistics were further explained, Sakura showed herself out after Yuri's insistence that she could recover her daughter on her own.

The sun sat just barely higher in the sky and the street smelled of people, stirring, kicking up dirt as they walked, vendors beginning their chants and sales pitches. The narrow creek danced as green as a streak of lilypads under the sky's attention. The skin of Sakura's face prickled in the sudden wash of natural warmth, relishing in the comfort and tightness of June sunshine.

A bell tower chimed with the strike of the hour, filling the air with echoing chords. She'd missed the structure somehow in her observation of the town, and although it was the tallest building in the premises, its dark brick blurred almost comically into the treeline along the western horizon. An external staircase wound around its base, spiraling, cracked grey stone attached to the equally marred walls of the structure it clung to, mirrored by a foliage of winding vines with blooming peach flowers.

Her eyes followed the curve of the stairs, admiring the shadows and the angles and way it seemed to be unashamed of its age, this hulking body looming over an otherwise average village. Its cracks held character, its chipping torso filled square by square with complacent charm. Even the face of the meager bell that swung there, tarnished under many summer sun's stare, twirled proudly in it deterioration.

And even that single gargoyle perched alone on its inner frame, as if to watch the world develop beneath the structure it guarded. Wondering as its expression, attempting to recall some of the architectural history Sai had taught her, Sakura raised a hand to block the glaring sun, which currently obscured the details of the statue and left it as only a darkened silhouette. Mid-pondering of its origin, waiting for her eyes to adjust, the serenity that had settled about her shoulders turned to stone and dread, and suddenly it became very difficult for Sakura to breathe.

The gargoyle was not a gargoyle at all, but a man.

The gargoyle was Sasuke dropped into a predatory crouch, black hair sharpening the murderous intent spread across his face, staring very pointedly at Sakura.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Please review :)


	3. Chapter 3

He wouldn't stop following her.

Sakura tore herself from the sight of the bell tower and fled to the nearest alley she could find. The emotions shadowing his features spoke volumes, and she didn't have to be told to run before instinctively jumping into action. This Sasuke was much different than the man she'd encountered yesterday, gawking in the street, and elicited a frantic timidity in every atom of her body.

His massive chakra trailed her every step like a thundercloud. The sheer weight of his unhinged potential suffocated her thoughts. She ran blindly, taking any and every turn as they came, praying another passage would be there with every snap of her head. Blood pulsed in her ears as she desperately attempted to find a way out of this obscure maze, and all the while she berated herself for believing that he'd let her go unharmed, even for a moment. Even by accident.

The years blinded her from the ruthlessness of his sheer existence. Had war been so close to the present, even when it seemed so far away? Foolishly she'd assumed that Sasuke had matured, detached from the carnivorous machine Orochimaru had slaved over for years. A man mastering his craft, that's all Sasuke was: a murderer maintaining his namesake. Maybe the satisfaction he required to return back to normalcy was her blood smearing his hands. And he could do it, she knew. Even as her legs pounded the flat dirt of the earth floor, the pressure of gravity fighting back flaring through her thighs, adrenaline threw her onwards in sheer terror.

Rounding a corner, she found herself barred by a dead end of rotting brick, the dirt ground littered with trash bags and abandoned food wrappers. She cursed such pitiful luck. Retracing her steps would be impossible as he'd surely follow her every move, closing in on her any second now. The wrath of his presence already felt like hot tar on her senses. Sakura glanced up in desperation. The walls of the store on her left were reflected by the same size building on her right; the brick climbed up another twenty feet above her head, at least, with the tops of each roof sloping downwards towards the ground, mere feet apart as if preparing to kiss.

She could scale the walls if she moved quickly enough, but truly escaping Sasuke seemed unlikely. His chakra signature grew more foreboding with every passing second. It would be close, but no other choice revealed itself.

Charging her legs with chakra and grinding her teeth to prepare for her jump, Sakura pounced a quarter way up the wall, landing in a crouch. Refusing to glance back she began to sprint upwards, avoiding bricks that appeared overly-sensitive and damaged, which led to a game of improvisational hopskotch. The world seemed almost entirely in slow-motion, the gap between the two roofs seemed miles away and panic trickled into her pattern of breathing. Sasuke's chakra signature was virtually palpable at this point, molding around every curve of her fleeing body and thundering in its rage. He was coming. This man was going to kill her.

A petulant voice whimpered for Naruto in the back of her head. For the first time in a long time, she did not believe she would be her own hero.

But she'd die trying.

She heard him before she felt him. Feet always light as a feather, the kunoichi remained oblivious when he joined her pursuit up the side of the building. But even past the deafening power of his presence, she barely caught the poison of his voice at the nape of her neck.

"Sakura."

Time itself couldn't have moved quickly enough to deflect Sasuke's oncoming attack. His rough hands gripped stonily around her bare throat, squeezing maliciously before hurling her entire body into the rubble below. The earth cracked minimally beneath her weight as the kunoichi deflected as much of the impact as possible, but the crunch of her left knee meeting the ground sent a cascade of lightning behind her eyes.

Green chakra hummed around the injury before Sakura finished flipping back onto her feet, fighting the urge to moan at the pain radiating throughout her lower body.

Sasuke remained unimpressed and visibly seething even after the intelligence of her physical reaction. Heat and searing desolation radiated from his every pore.

"Sakura," he said again, more pointedly and dripping with animosity.

He didn't expect her immediate charge, a flurry of kicks - repelled by the guard slapped across his forearm, fury increasing at the recognition of her strength. She wielded more power within her tiny limbs than he remembered or imagined, and the heat of his anger grew at the thought.

A shruiken aimed half-heartedly at her ribcage was easily batted away. Was he testing her? Sakura released a bout of senbon from a case on her hip, which Sasuke's shinguard absorbed harmlessly. He responded with a decisive blow to the nape of her neck, the majority of which she deflected with chakra. Calmly, she reached behind and caught his wrist, halfway to snapping the bone before receiving a knee to the gut - she'd foolishly left her torso exposed - and he retrieved his outstretched arm before retreating a few yards back.

Clutching her abdomen a splash of blood spluttered from her twisted mouth as she coughed violently. The air completely vacated her lungs upon contact and her self-annoyance doubled.

He permitted no time for recuperation, tossing a cluster of kunai at her main chakra points. Dodging haphazardly, she seethed as pain bubbled in her stomach. The nukenin activated his bloodline within a shadowed corner, face still and hardened with savagery.

"You shouldn't be here," he said simply, ominously. Casting her eyes to the side to avoid any oncoming illusions, enmity ballooned in the chakra that swelled to cloak every inch of her body.

A collection of clones leaped from above, surrounding Sasuke from all angles. He parred with each before retrieving his kusanagi, smoke puffing in a halo as he swiped the blade in a neat circle. A blur later and the sword was returned to his hip. He saw the oncoming punch, although he hadn't expected it, and caught her glowing fist with his already injured hand. The defense cost him its mobility; the resounding crunch signalled its full, clean break. Sakura smirked.

The victory was short-lived as he pinned her roughly, further cracking the earth. The ache of her newly-healed knee flared for a moment, warranting a grunt from the kunoichi. Now Sasuke smirked, a sadistic shadow pouring over his features. "Still so weak."

Venom coursed through her veins. Hooking an ankle around his thigh and twisting the momentum to reverse their positions, Sakura sank a heavy knee into the bone of Sasuke's hip, simultaneously wrenching his broken wrist into a particularly agonizing angle.

"Fuck. You," she spat with all the resentment she could muster. The shinobi headbutted her, dazing her momentarily, then threw her from his person. Sakura landed with both feet braced against the brick wall at her back, then rebounded to send another round of taijutsu at Sasuke. The light of day streamed narrowly across his features as they sparred, punching and kicking and drawing blood where they could. Sakura ground her teeth with every received blow. Glancing at the seals tattooed on his wrist she pondered why he bothered with hand-to-hand combat. They both knew no matter her adeptness these days, a chidori to the stomach would silence her for good. It was unlike Sasuke to hold back.

Past their grappling she could hear the townspeople stirring in the streets. Fishermen pulled shore-side and called out the day's catch. She wondered if Yuri was open yet, and if she'd sold any cake. A little annoyed she remembered that she'd forgotten to try a slice.

Sasuke was quick to regain her attention, suddenly halting their exchange of blows to bat away her swinging leg and launch to grasp her upper arms. Expecting to meet the dusty ground once more, she stumbled ungracefully when her weight was instead pushed parallel to the ground. Her skin met the bitter bite of old brick, the back of her head clanging against the wall. Sasuke's sharingan twirled sadistically in front of her. Sakura was admittedly thrown by the change of pace.

"Get off of me," she hissed, pushing her arms against his grasp, although resistance was fruitless. He resettled her arms above her head, flat against the wall.

Leaning closer he seethed in response. "Do not speak or move."

Grunting and wiggling again to free herself, this time the kunoichi was quelled with the chill of the kusanagi tucked beneath her chin. She'd completely missed his draw.

"I will not repeat myself," he whispered gravely.

Before Sakura could formulate a retort, a rustling tumbled down the alleyway. A small, golden ball bounced harmlessly against the pavement then bobbed clumsily along the openings in the earth. Sasuke sheathed the sword as they both tracked the ball's movement. It rolled across the wreckage with a bit of teetering, then plopped decisively against the opposing wall, mere feet away from where the two ninja stood at arms.

Sasuke instantly shifted further into the alley and into the shield of a gloomy corner, speed hardly impaired by Sakura's added weight as he lifted her along. He rearranged their position, tucking himself into the corner of the touching dead brick with Sakura hidden behind his back. Her arms remained gathered in a twist within his only functioning hand. Unable to peer around the shinobi's broad back and prohibited from adjusting her position to witness the issue (she'd tried to lean past his shoulder to see, which earned her a painful yank on her convoluted limbs), Sakura stole the opportunity to gather herself. Instantly she suppressed the discomfort she held at the closeness of their bodies.

At his impatient instruction to cease the externalization of her chakra, as its glow would draw attention, she complied reluctantly. Although she was uncertain what shook Sasuke so thoroughly.

For a fleeting moment she considered fleeing. He seemed distracted enough, body tensed and legs coiled to leap at any moment. The hold he maintained on her arms could be loosened or broken with enough brute force, and plenty of chakra stilled hummed in her body. Fear and curiosity kept her still.

More scuffing echoed through the tunnel that led into the alleyway, along with random shouts and incoherent warnings. A child's nervous laugh sang through the corridor. Eventually a group of tottering shadows soared over the little shadow that the opening of the alley provided and the noises slowed. Sasuke remained perfectly still as a group of children emerged from the thin light.

Confusion mulled their faces, one of the shorter boys in the group even cupping his hands around his eyes.

"I can't even see!" said the boy with the impromptu hand-goggles. Sakura had forgotten how difficult vision-training had been as a genin. These civilian children reminded her of the weeks she'd spent training at midnight with Naruto and Kakashi, wandering blindly through the forest.

A taller girl flanking the boys' right hushed him as she encroached further into the alley, wandering closer to the crevices and shards of rock that lay in the shadows. Sasuke watched, motionless.

"The ball is back here somewhere, it's a dead end," said the same girl in a quiet tone, her feet slowing as the group travelled deeper. Sakura could sense their anxious little bodies a few yards away. Seven children all gathered at the mouth of the entrance. They couldn't be older than ten or so, she guessed, and she worried for their parents.

"If you're so sure then you can go in and look, Tomi," teased another girl in the back of the flock. The taller girl halted at the front of the group, gazing senselessly into the black air. "What's the matter? Afraid of the dark?" the same girl taunted.

"Stop it, Mahani," whimpered a small, quivering voice. Sasuke glanced at the trembling young toddler clinging to the dress of the mouthier female he'd been regarding. Tears welled in his eyes. "I think somebody is in there."

Sasuke's muscles tightened as another child retorted. "Don't be such a baby. No one is back here. Just find the ball already," said an exasperated Mahani.

"Would all of you just shut up?" Tomi barked. "I can't even think."

Mahani scoffed and shoved the little boy from her clothes. Sasuke stared as she clamored bodily to the front, making a point to push the other children as she travelled forward. "You big babies, I'll get it. It's just a ball."

The young girl started off in the right direction, but she didn't expect the patches of open-earth that cluttered the area around the ball. Her small shoe caught the edge of a sharp rock and she fell to the jagged ground with a complimentary thud. Sakura nearly jumped at the girl's piercing shriek.

The children fell into absolute disarray, half of them tucking tail and retreating, screaming for help, while some other simply stood, blind and petrified, and joined the injured Mahani in her wailing.

Knowing Sakura's first instinct would be to heal the child, Sasuke swiftly turned to pin the kunoichi with a look. She stared unabashedly back, providing a slight nod in understanding. Sasuke quirked an eyebrow slightly in question, unsure he trusted her to understand his meaning. Sakura simply peered upward, gaze settling on the gap between the roofs that she'd attempted to escape through earlier. When she returned her eyes to Sasuke, he released one of her arms with a threatening, albeit meaningful look. Slightly aggravated by his utter lack of trust in her better judgement, Sakura began her swift ascent. Sasuke followed, the shrill shouts of the children falling gradually away. The two shinobi slipped soundlessly through the roofs as adults began to job worriedly towards the distraught children.

Sasuke did not relinquish his hold even as they emerged into the relative safety of daylight. The kunoichi gawked at his firm clamp around her wrist, tugging pointedly at their physical entrapment.

The shinobi regarded her lazily, searching for a route to a more discreet location. Sakura struggled again, beginning a verbal protest that was too loud for his liking.

Sasuke pulled the kunoichi closer with a flick of his wrist, boring into her furious eyes without hesitation.

"We are not finished. Stop pulling away, or I will gladly return the favor," he threatened lowly, lifting his broken wrist into her line of sight.

Sakura rolled her eyes and stepped back, uncomfortable with his habit of close proximity.

"Asshole," she uttered dimly. THe nukenin gladly ignored her.

Midday shined brazenly above their heads, illuminating every exposed crevice of the city. The two ninja stood patiently - although one significantly less so - on the rooftop of a humble storefront. The people below were less perceptive to the vastness surrounding them, the majority completely oblivious to the pair on the roof. Sakura imagined mockingly that she was a clueless civilian woman, dancing around in her apron and chiding kids and partaking in frivolous activities. The burn of Sasuke's grip, however, anchored her feet firmly into the ground, even as she stretched to submerge her heads into the clouds.

The nukenin beside her roamed the horizon without bothering to disclose his train of thought. How absurdly strange it was that he'd stopped their fight at the sound of children. She'd never pegged him as the type to censor, or to generally pay any mind to the susceptibilities of young kids. Although it made sense if he was truly concerned about blowing his cover. After all, he'd made a life here. But did he really plan to resume their fight once he found somewhere suitable? For a person with majorly underdeveloped social skills, Sakura figured it wasn't wildly far-fetched. Side-eyeing him as he peered stonily into the distance, she didn't believe the choice fit, regardless. Sasuke was too intelligent to do something as petulant as start a battle for no reason. Although she didn't know what she'd done to warrant combat in the first place, come to think of it.

The raven-haired man tugged impatiently at her wrist, a little more forcefully than she deemed necessary. She was complying, after all.

"You will come with me," he demanded. His tone was as blank as could be the rage from minutes ago fully retreated into whatever recesses held it when unneeded. Sakura was not keen to follow alongside the brooding man, but he'd already begun hopping along the roofs of the town, back towards the hill where she had started her day. The kunoichi remained lazy in her pace as she joined him, trying to stall by decreasing the velocity of travel, but he simply responded with a rough pull forward. "Keep up or I'll kill you."

Without thinking, she scoffed.

"Are you kidding me? Why can't you just leave me alone?" she asked, trying to remove the whining tone of her voice. She'd settle for passive aggressiveness.

Sasuke grunted. "I could ask you the same."

"What is that supposed to mean?" she snapped. "I ignored you when I saw you. You tracked me down."

"Don't lie. You followed me this morning and tried to gather information," Sasuke said smoothly.

"Followed you? You hate sweets," she exclaimed. Sasuke did not respond.

Sakura gawked at the back of his head, yanking her wrist in his hand so he'd turn his head. Noticing her disbelief, he held her eyes.

The kunoichi struggled not to splutter. "I wasn't following you. You really underestimate the power of a decade of absence," she responded.

Sasuke was unimpressed. Placidly returning his mind to the horizon, he called back over his shoulder: "I am not going back to Konoha, Sakura."

The succeeding scoff caught him off guard. "I'm not here to bring you home," she corrected. "Although why I am here is none of your business."

"You will tell me," he stated bluntly, but without force. Sakura remained silent, jumping from roof to roof, hoping they arrived wherever Sakura planned to go sooner rather than later.

Both shinobi fell into a steak of stillness, travelling without speaking. Sakura's thoughts remained mostly barren, mindlessly scanning the unfamiliar scenery and flitting through a mental to-do list to pass the time. Sasuke contemplated his reckless companion, spending the majority of his energy forming some meager speech to convince Sakura to evade his immediate area. The kunoichi was fond of talking. That much, at least, remained unchanged. Sakura did not comprehend nonverbal communication much to his chagrin, and for that fact alone (although alone in his complaints it certainly wasn't) he would be glad to be rid of her.

The nukenin settled on a clearing beyond the mouth of the creek, where the water grew thicker and louder, only miles from the land of Waterfalls. Upon entering the center of the meadow Sasuke promptly released Sakura's wrist, then sprinted a few more feet before turning to face the kunoichi.

She rubbed her wrist irritably, scowling at the purple and black blotches forming there. Mild deja vu scrambled his senses as he watched her fumble over herself. She hadn't grown since the last time they met, during the war. He'd seen her so briefly, preferring to stay out of the line of fire to avoid run-ins with familiar shinobi. Anyone with a bingo book or common sense would've declared his presence to the ninja world if they'd discovered him unintentionally, and a tide of unwanted would follow. He did what little he could when he could, fighting for whoever his daily mood favored. Mostly he remained rogue, the unfitting hero in the shadows. He did not crave redemption like so many assumed. Just some peace and quiet.

But seeing Leaf shinobi was unavoidable; they were everywhere. Helping others remained forever in their blood. He'd avoided the audacious blond idiot at every cost, but often forgot to track Sakura's presence. Perhaps a boyish part of him never assumed she would make it to the front lines.

He'd seen her once squandering the leftovers of a battle, appearing much like she did now. She picked through the injured, stopping to heal where she could and for as long as she could stand. Strawberry hair still so flashy and full of light, a smile radiating from her core even amongst the shambles of men and things. The kunoichi looked largely the same as he remembered, with the curves he'd never grown accustomed to and the wit with which he was poorly acquainted. He remarked dimly on how she'd held together over the years - the decade - that parted them. Restlessly he wondered if she thought the same of him, though he doubted it.

Nose scrunched in discomfort, she continued to grope at her wrist. FOr the first time, he willingly acknowledged the disappointment brewing within him. Undoubtedly childish and irrational and disgusting, the feeling remained even with his berating. Sakura was so incredibly unmoved by his presence, so naturally fearsome and independent. While fighting him had not been easy, she held her own without bragging and without brashness, meaning she knew that level strength intimately. He should've trained more on his own. Should've kept the cement walls around his emotions solid. Why had he even spoken to her? He said too much and now he seemed foolish, less intimidating.

In reality he was perfectly adept, he knew, but he wanted to be more. Her improved taijutsu was a challenge and a surprise, but even with it his ninjutsu would demolish her. A pump to the ego numbed the throb of disappointment a little, but his self-aggrandizing stayed poignant in the center of his mind. Too weak. Too frail. Powerless.

Eventually they caught each other's eyes and locked there. Each stood with arms stilled at their sides. Absently Sasuke noted the ache of his wrist begin anew. He wondered how hard it could be to heal oneself without training, not even considering to request the assistance of the coveted mednin in front of him. Too weak.

Sakura cocked her hip in impatience. She wondered at the time and then at the incredulity of time. She'd spend approximately twenty-six years of her life sleeping, four years of her life eating. She wondered how many years of her life she'd spent just watching Sasuke.

Wrought with agitation, she snapped and finally spoke, albeit awkwardly.

"So. How long have you been here?"

Sasuke did not react. Bad move, she noted. This was not the time to give the impression that she cared. After all, he did not seem convinced that her current mission had nothing to do with him.

"Sorry, probably a personal question," she added after a minute or so of silence. She wiggled her toes against the grime collected on her sandals, sifting through potential questions to break the tense air.

"Are you waiting for me to hit you again? Am I supposed to fight you some more?" she questioned. Because, I mean, if so, just give me a sign." This was only half a joke, knowing she'd be ready to pounce if it came to blows.

No bait. Sasuke just regarded her cagily, face stony and body straight as a line. The sun's rays drew a bout of sweat from her forehead and she carelessly reached to wipe it away with the back of her hand. She didn't expect the crumbled blood that was carried back down on the skin of her appendage.

Suddenly the kunoichi became painfully aware of her haggard, beaten appearance. The serene field couldn't contrast more with her mottled bruises and numerous wounds and dirtied skin. Heart beating in a rhythm of girlish worry, she scowled internally.

This was ridiculous. After repeating the statement in her head, she decided to tell Sasuke as much. Still, he did not react.

Tossing her hands halfway up the length of her body, Sakura huffed in exasperation.

"What do you want from me?" she nearly yelled, leaning towards the motionless man that stood on the other end of the field.

He stared, perhaps deciding on an answer, but never moving, never speaking. Sakura phased in and out of her own frustration, falling into her own thoughts and then refocusing on the shinobi's face at arbitrary intervals. She contemplated running for the hundredth time, but didn't want to give the appearance of retreat. And he'd chase her, certainly, and she really didn't want to fight again. She'd lost the desire to beat Sasuke senseless many years before.

And then, suddenly, a dull sound rang in her ears. She glanced up, noticing the new expression of Sasuke's mouth and realizing she'd missed what he said.

"What?" she asked, a little embarrassed.

Something unidentifiable flitted over his features before he repeated himself.

"Leave."

And this time, it was Sasuke's turn to walk away.


	4. Chapter 4

Following Sasuke would be a stupid choice. Leaving and keeping his secret would be a traitorous choice. To say nothing or do nothing, to leave the world oblivious or throw it into the same disarray which swarmed Sakura's brain like a halo of angry hornets; there was no out. Only disruption, likely to the mission, to Sasuke, and the Leaf. She neglected to simmer on the personal consequences for herself. Exiting from the equation was the fastest path to resolution, she knew.

After Sasuke stormed off and abandoned her in the field, she wandered somewhat aimlessly amongst the wild flowered weeds and leaping bugs. Although she was meant to reconvene with Yuri at her cottage, the fight and argument left her disoriented and emotionally drained. She drifted and emptied her head. She walked, a hand outstretched, and watched the sun slide over her choppy nails, mix with the beads of moisture and sweat slipping over her arm. The light around her was gilded yellow and fading as if the sun itself was withered, hazy and almost leathery where it hovered over the tops of the tall grasses, and the dissipation was quaking over and through her like a heatwave in which she was disintegrating. She felt dramatic. She felt like the epitome of digression, of a crumbling bridge. Shaken to her core and washed onto the beach of an alternate universe, the granules of sand scratching at her cheek.

Rinsing her face before bed in the stream on the edge of the town, she welcomed the icy slip of the water over her nose, dripping onto her lips. At home, she used to leave her apartment windows ajar so the rustling leaves could sing her to sleep, and she closed her eyes, pretending that was all this day was. A long, long trip to unconsciousness. And then, in the morning, she would wake up. Naruto would be knocking on the door for breakfast, nuzzle himself into the couch while she stirred eggs in a buttered pan. There would be the little hole, the gap of tenderness in her mood and mentality, but nothing she could not patch and heal and replace over time like any other seeping wound.

Her masquerade as a woman steeped in patience was disassembling in the palm of her hands. Pitifully, scraping for resolve, she whispered to herself before sleep to lure a dream from the trenches of her unconscious, hoping for an unseen answer, an emerging symbol or totem which could lead her toward the brighter, better thing. But the choice, regardless of what might be objectively correct, remained a riddle. And still, she found herself, though minorly distraught, concerned with the sheer act of it all, needing to pretend that she was unaffected. The lapse of breath that took over her when turning a street corner was nothing. Her thoughts succumbing to the riptide of her imagination and wading back into the murky water of old, undead habits was nothing. Just tired, she told herself. Just exhausted.

Waking in the morning, dusting spare blades of grass from her sleeping bag, the shock was substituted for a bone-deep disappointment. Not with the circumstances, but with herself. She stretched her legs experimentally and focused on the pressure of the ground beneath her. Ironically, she mused that before this she assumed she had hit bottom, but she had come to know better. She came to the little village determined to ascend, maybe not to the level of her former glory but to go somewhere upward or ahead. To some higher plain of knowledge or fulfillment. Of course he would appear now in the midst of her plight. All of the nights spent under the stars, hiding in ditches, sprinting through trees with rogue weapons flying past. They could never be him. They never were. Even when her expectations of him were so low, he kept surprising her. He stayed invisible. He appeared for others but never for her, a ghost whose summons she never uncovered. Only now. Only now when she wasn't looking, when she was hiding, too, hoping in the back of her head that he could be dead and buried like so many of her comrades left blown to bits in the pursuit of redemption. She wanted to wonder why – why now? But the thought just left her bitter and feeling strange, bisected from her identity.

Regardless, there was still the mission. She stifled a harsh chuckle as she traced the tree bark beside her head. There was always a mission.

She trudged, sleepless, back to the bakery, watching for sudden movements in the forest and street puddles. The clock tower, too, lacked its previous looming shadow. She didn't think Sasuke would insist on another fight, but then again, she couldn't claim to know him anymore. The kunoichi wasn't even sure if Yuri would still expect her or if she would grow sourly suspicious from her absence at the cottage. But as she breached the path leading down the main strip of town, she saw the old woman waiting.

Yuri draped her legs over the little honey wooden steps leading into the storefront, dragging on a cigarette when Sakura glided up. Beside her lay a slice of the polished cake from yesterday, perfect and neat, the frosting still lightly fluffed.

"I saved you a piece," she said without greeting Sakura. She smiled close-lipped and blew smoke from her nose, the tendrils curling up like indigo vines spreading and growing under her jaw. Sakura stroked the end of her choppy braid, then knotted her fingers around her pack straps.

"I apologize for yesterday. I had trouble finding the house you mentioned." She eyed the cake. "You were so sure I'd come back here before it spoiled?"

"You could say I've got good instincts." She nudged the plate with the cigarette balanced between her fingers. "Not going to check it for poison?"

Sakura watched her dry laugh unfold, but Yuri didn't let it ring, just turned back to her forward staring and smoking. "Ninjas are supposed to be suspicious, aren't they?"

"We generally prefer the term 'cautious.'"

Yuri laughed and flicked the plate closer, a flutter of ash twirling down. Sakura snagged a dollop of cream on her fingernail, tasting the icing and savoring the crisp tingle of lemon and the morning quiet.

"I owe you an apology, too, anyway. For how my daughter reacted yesterday," Yuri said, a little gruff. Across the way the other merchants were sliding back their doors, letting the morning crawl inside, hoisting bells on carts, propping wheels into stillness with chipped bricks. There was even the hat seller Sakura had seen yesterday, posture crooked as he rearranged the flimsy things on their individual hooks.

Sakura nodded and wiped the corners of her mouth.

"Ever since Koto went missing — left — any mention of his name has her on edge," Yuri continued. "She's usually more . . ."

"Receptive?"

"Compliant," Yuri said. Sakura peered at the old woman, perching there with her cigarette, utterly steadfast and battle-worn and maybe – Sakura lapsed into a moment of nostalgia – not unlike her own mother after her father passed away and the wars were won. Sakura's chest inflated involuntarily, a balloon tensing and filling her chest and awaiting puncture. She had to stop lingering. A taunting glimmer of smattered images flashed and then went, like the sun peeking through the canopy. Her thoughts immediately rushed to that place, that figure of darkness shattering itself and absorbing light, refracting the world around her into dizzying rainbows and blindspots. Sasuke could be hiding here. The realization chilled her. He probably was. He probably knew as well as Yuri that she would come back to harvest information from her only current source. Sakura glanced over her shoulder, sensing for any chakra around..

An ember flew loose from Yuri's cigarette and embedded itself in Sakura's ankle. She slapped the burn like a feasting bug and grunted. She needed to focus.

"So what's this about, then?" Yuri said and coughed. "You thought the house was just a trap, so you've come back? Do you think we keep him in the attic?"

"Your bakery has no attic," Sakura said evenly. Yuri rolled her eyes. "If you were hiding him, I'm sure you would come up with a place much more clever."

"More clever than a house in the middle of the woods?" Yuri's glasses glinted as she adjusted them on her nose bridge.

"I'm not in the business of underestimating anyone, Yuri-sama," Sakura said.

She watched Yuri's skin pull and then resettle with her responding frown. She wondered how many of those lines were due to a sliding cake or a burnt cookie or her grandson, dirtying dishes, sneaking out at night, torturing innocents.

"I bet you know where he is," Yuri said and scowled, "you're just trying to suck us dry."

"I'm simply trying to gather some information on your grandson in order to figure out the motivation behind his insistent crimes. Then, perhaps, I will know where he is."

Yuri snorted. "And what, Haruno-san, makes you think I've got any idea what sort of plans that troublemaker has drummed up?"

"You raised him." Sakura slid her plate of cake, mostly untouched, back onto the porch steps. The raspberries were slick and glossy in the climbing sun as if freshly picked. Sakura moved closer to the old woman, sitting beside her and lounging back while Yuri's concentration darted, bouncing from each person filling the street, drilling staccato beats onto the rough embroidery of her skirt with dancing fingers.

"I fed him, sure," Yuri said, jaw firming up. "I wiped his ass and sewed his stitches back together when his clothes would rip from all the running around he was doing. Running around, making messes, sticking his nose where it never belonged. I fixed him up. I tried to get him on his feet for more than five minutes at a time. But I didn't raise him," she scowled.

Sakura bent closer. "Then who did?"

For a moment Yuri seemed to contemplate seriously, then huffed again. "I don't know. Probably the devil." A passerby in the street waved at the pair, heading to the small shop next door, making her bristle. She pulled away from Sakura's pressing stare and gathered herself to stand, resting a hand on the door of the stop and avoiding eye contact.

"I have nothing to say about that kid. I can't help you."

"Usually when people say that, the opposite tends to be true," Sakura said, picking up her plate and moving toward the door.

Yuri crossed her arms and widened her stance, blockading the way into the shop.

"You think I'm hiding something," she said, more of a statement than a question. Sakura's lack of response spoke for itself. Yuri rustled her apron, retrying where it twisted

and tied over her petite, fleshy belly. Her skin dented under the strain of the strings.

"Stick around and see for yourself if that's what you need to do. Nobody here has anything to do with a Koto anymore, and if they did, they wouldn't be coming into this shop." She gestured to the surrounding buildings. "Go on. Take your post on one of them. Watch and see. I know you were planning to anyway."

"Because ninjas are suspicious?" Sakura asked.

"If the Devil didn't raise Koto, then a ninja surely did," she spat back, grabbing the plate from Sakura's outstretched hand. "How else would he learn all that snooping around and street scrapping?"

"This is a civilian village, Yuri-sama," Sakura said. The old woman looked away, but swerved back and raised her voice before Sakura could continue.

"Stories are powerful things, Haruno-san," Yuri said. She withdrew into the shop, pulling the sliding glass pane between them and pushing the last of her words through the crack in the doorway. "I wonder how many stories about you are out there, blowing from village to village."

The sun's glare threw a harsh square between them, blocking out Yuri's face. But from the back of the shop, Sakura could make out a dark silhouette, quivering and scurrying away, bread flour twirling in the open doorway of the kitchen like the thick, rolling smoke of a desert storm.

A light headache breached the back of her eyes. For a few moments, Sakura simply stood, surmising gravity as Yuri retreated farther into the shop. She surmised the truths of the world that were beaming and guiding her but which she could not sense. She pressed her fingertips against her forehead, tracing the little purple diamond. Something was off, obviously. But all she had so far was a stubborn old woman and her mute daughter. Pen-and-paper questioning wasn't beneath her, but she would have to isolate Akami somehow, which she imagined was practically impossible. Answers were not self-evident. Missions never unfolded themselves comfortably, she knew. There was no simple way forward or backward, but the truth of the difficulties lying ahead ached despite her intimacy with things cloaked in unknown instincts. She never asked for things to be easy, but weakly, the voice in the back of her head moaned – Couldn't they be? Just this once?

Whether or not a cabin in the woods truly existed, she wasn't sure. But, her eyes skimming over the dusted cobblestone path leading toward the edge of town, it seemed that the kunoichi would have no choice except to find out.

Scraping one foot in front of the other, she dragged herself back to the fields. Despite the pouring sunshine, her gaze never left the rooftops, waiting to see a lurking figure transform into a stalking predator.

The cottage was easy to miss. This is how she rationalized her earlier mistake to herself, anyway, as the epitome of its discovery filled her with temporary gratification. Wildflowers and kudzu cascaded into a small grove sloping over the back edge of the small, ruddy shack, camouflaging it to the point where it blended into where the pasture bled into the thicket of field trees. The cherry wood of the house was porous in places, roasted from the constant sun. The portion of the cottage facing the path was entirely overtaken by greenery. The only giveaway that any structure was hidden inside was the guiding sunshine again; it slipped into the small windows embellishing the sides of the house and illuminated a chopstick lazily abandoned on the counter. The shine flared in her periphery as she was walking and called her attention. All the while she had been berating herself for what she was sure was just beneath her nose and then there it was, practically growing out of the earth. Half a garden, half a home.

She expected something much tidier. More occupied, as well. The likelihood of the cottage being utilized as Koto's hideout was slim, but she expected at least one other person to linger on the property while Yuri and Akami were away. Bakeries ran such long hours. The delicate pastry shops back in Konoha were bustling from evening until dawn, leeching the streets of the air and spitting back out a lush aroma of butter and sugar and a melted, concentrated decadence that made her sigh and close her eyes on her strolls home. She had only seen it closed once or twice, during the holidays or war. It was difficult to believe that their sole house was so far from town and left, defenseless, in the middle of the woods. She supposed the concealment was decent enough to justify the emptiness. She had missed it herself, after all.

Scoping out the entrances, she found the back door both unlocked and slightly ajar. A box of unopened rice was keeping the door propped open, and the space between inside and outside was hissing with the gentle flow of air about the house. She detected no chakra signatures inside. Still, she positioned her hand on the hilt of a kunai for precaution.

Yuri's sneering voice echoed in her head. Ninjas were suspicious.

Contrast to the outside of the house, the interior was strikingly modern, if not plain. The walls were stark and crisp, white like the tender underside of an eggshell. The room she entered was clearly an addition to the house, a small mudroom with a single pair of house sandals. A tower of embedded shelves on her right side was stacked with precise lines of practical shoes, while the rest of the room remained staunch and bare. She slid the shoji at the end of the nook to the side, the door smooth and velvety on its tracks, to reveal an equally bare kitchen. Everything was so utterly neutral, from the appliances to the countertops, the hazelnut-colored floors, flawlessly polished, and the overgrowth of the lush word outside was borderline garish the way it screamed through the window, throwing an ivy tint to the virgin, milky walls. Sakura tinkered with the few odd objects stamping a corner here, a corner there – a chiseled steel figurine of a boar propped beside the bread box, a sewn strand, perhaps a bracelet, which hung in the window of the open living room and shimmied with every couple of breezes carried inside, its yarn colorful and exotic like a jungle caterpillar. There was even a picture frame on the mantle of a fireplace, which appeared to be sealed and painted, but no image sat behind the glass. Like the rest of the house, it stood empty, as if waiting.

A hallway was attached to the far end of the open living room. She walked softly and slowly, listening for any movement from the two doors dimpling the smooth walls. This part of the house continued the themes of remarkable cleanliness and unremarkable decoration. There was a single, small bathroom on one side of the hall with nothing interesting to report. Opening the door to the only apparent bedroom was the first moment when she saw something unkempt. The sheets and dark blanket were unmade and tossed in a twirl, entangled. The fabric was knotted and heavy in her hands when she grasped them, feeling for a trace of chakra. And, her breathing hitched – they were still warm.

Thrusting herself around and over the bed, expecting a surprise appearance from some undetected person, she landed instead into the clutches of a foot snag partially hidden beneath the bed. Gravity fell out from beneath her as she was twisted and turned into a cocoon of fibrous threads. Flailing, every twist was met with another punishing thread, binding her into alignment until she was rod straight and hanging from the ceiling, her hair half-loose from her braid and hovering above the floor.

The wait was longer than anticipated. Almost torturous. Purposeful, certainly, so the perpetrator could gloat from wherever they hid and watch her chagrin build. She flashed her chakra to prevent the blood from rushing to her head. She was sure she looked ridiculous, childish. She wondered who she was attracting, pulling closer, wondered how many more times she would fuck up and plummet herself back to rock-bottom. She wasn't sure she could afford many more slips.

Around the corner, a sound from the kitchen echoed. Small, as if a salt bowl had shifted across the countertop. Then footsteps, not loud but not muffled, not ashamed of themselves. She had been seen somehow crossing the treeless pasture. Yuri was out of the question; she couldn't have set such an intricate trap on her own. Sakura hardened and stilled, trying to quell her fury and anticipation as the footfall grew nearer. Mulling over the mistake wasn't in the interest of time. Bigger threats stood looming.

Before he turned the corner into the bedroom, he released the suppression of his chakra and allowed it to bloom fully. The intensity was punishing, so heavy and sudden it was almost unreal. She would have preferred a shuriken to the throat over the level of pride cemented in his dark eyes as he absorbed the sight of her. His hold on emotionlessness had slackened, it seemed, even more so than their fight yesterday. She could see the smug frown twitching over his mouth as he stopped in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest. She half-expected him to push a tactless finger against her and watch her body sway, encapsulated.

"Following me will always be unwise," he said.

"Oh, bite me, would you?" she huffed. A pink lock shook in front of her eyes. "I didn't follow you anywhere."

"My last instruction was for you to leave." His shell slowly reformed. Stoicism froze the curves of his face into a bored, porcelain mask.

Sakura wiggled within the constricting hold. There was no give to the material. "Where did you even get this stuff?"

"Resistance aggravates the effects."

"I'll tell you what's aggravating," she spat. She pulsed her chakra, attempting to trigger the rows of senbon she kept installed along the edges of her gloves. They sprang and released, but immediately after she felt a reverberation within the thread, shooting her own pulse back at her. A scramble of clipped yells escaped from her throat as she writhed.

Sasuke glided to the edge of the bed and sat amongst the wrinkled sheets. He pushed them to the side; the tenseness of his hold betrayed his coolness.

"Always such a hypocrite," she said. She used the mass of needles as a makeshift saw, chipping away at the threads binding her arms behind her lower back. Sasuke hardly ticked an eyebrow at her words, yet seemed to wait for her explanation.

"Swearing up and down that you want isolation just to keep popping your head back into where it doesn't belong. Interfering–

"You are interfering," he said. His hands slid to grip his knees as he inclined toward her a scant inch. "I will not return to Konoha, Sakura."

"No one is asking you to," she said between gritted teeth. She wanted nothing more than to imitate his stony expression, but distraction had always been her strong suit.

Black plunged into blood-red and tomoes emerged from an agonizing, hypnotizing whirlpool. Sakura slammed her eyes shut and concentrated on her breathing. The threads were slowly submitting to the slicing needles, one by one.

"I'll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine," she said. Sasuke grumbled softly, and Sakura was alarmed to feel how much closer he'd drawn to her. The puff of air fell over her face.

"Look," he said.

She plucked and plucked. One thread, then another. Two, then three, then another.

"Look at me, Sakura," he said.

"Let me go," she said. His breath cascaded over her in a hot mist. She squinted and stammered. "Just let it go, Sasuke."

"Look at me," he growled, grabbing a fistful of hair. She yelled and squinted harder. Four threads, eight threads, a handful, now, and she would wiggle her right hand freely. She focused on the other. If she could just sign . . .

The grip on her hair tightened as he pulled her closer. She felt the strands would rip directly out of her skull. Despite her best effort, she yelped.

"This is what you wanted to see, isn't it?" he rasped, nearly touching her face. His voice was a strangled whisper, like a seething cobra. "Open your eyes. Look at me so you can see the monster you were searching for."

The threads sprung loose beneath the most internal layer, just enough for her to clasp her fingers together for a jutsu. But before she could strangle out a technique, Sasuke's fingers tore over her scalp, thrusting her backward. The last thing she felt was an explosion of pain at the nape of her neck. She succumbed and opened her eyes, the Sharingan spinning wildly and absorbing her world.

Then everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are lovely.


	5. Chapter 5

The panic set in when she collapsed onto the floor. He cut the strings loose with a swipe of his katana, and now Sakura crumpled in front of him in a dazed heap. She was stuck in limbo. He threw up a commonplace genjutsu and flexed his hands, unsure what to do with her body. He hovered there for the lesser half of an hour. Handling her sent shivers rippling through him. He could feel her, her heaviness, and he resisted shuddering as he hoisted her slack body into his arms experimentally, grimacing at the feeling of her right hand poking through a bundle of shattered chakra-leeching threads. He scowled. Those had been expensive.

Abandoning her on the bed felt intimate. The bathroom would make it too difficult to fight if it came to that – slippery surfaces. The kitchen – knives. Many knives. He settled for the low-lying floor cushions in the center of the living room and practically tossed her from his grasp. The reactive thump of her body was too loud for his liking as if the gravity of her presence was sending signals into the foundation of the house, encouraging it to crumble. Pink hair screamed against the milkiness of his home. He had designed every room to be clinical, clean, like a carved wooden cutting board on which he could dice onions, pry seeds from peppers, gut fish and wipe the blood away to reveal a surface with a constant potential for newness. She disrupted that, her pink hair falling loose from a braid, splaying over her gently rising chest and probably shedding all over his carpet. The thought made him quiver with frustration: even if he could get her to leave he would find remnants of her for weeks, embedded in crevices all over the house.

The colors of her fighting attire had grown more demure in contrast, he noticed. Grey slacks covered her muscular legs, an olive green flak jacket buttoned over a dusty red blouse with a high collar. The haruno symbol, its pure, infinite circle, was fashioned into a hair clip that pushed her hair away from her forehead, which she seemed to have grown into. But she had the same frozen expression of fear when his eyes drifted up to calculate the changes of her face. He pushed her eyelids closed with his fingertips before pivoting to break away from the sight of her. He couldn't think with those eyes gawking at him, relentlessly green and absorbing, provoking things he had buried and cast aside.

Why had she followed him? Why was she doing this? They were simple, useless questions. But why? Picking through her brain as she floated through the genjutsu he cast –– it was loosely invented, she was always so nostalgic for their childhood –– he could find no impressions of premeditation in the energy wrapping her mind like a shawl. There was only confusion, mild desperation, and bullheadedness.

He was uncertain of how much time he bought himself to think. Three years had passed since the last time he saw Sakura and much more since they had fought extensively. The Great Shinobi War had ended, the Ten-Tails defeated and sealed off, but his final clash with Naruto never came. Despite popular belief, Sasuke had no desire for a final showdown. With Itachi dead and his potential for revenge and redemption doomed from its origins, Sasuke wanted nothing more than total isolation. His anger lay with himself. The discovery of Itachi's sacrifice had paralyzed him with incredulity. He wanted to forget and be forgotten.

But now –– he glanced at Sakura again, her hands twitching –– it seemed even this new life goal would be destroyed.

Their scrap in the alley was child's play. She had invaded his home now, he reminded himself, trying to stir the fading darkness of his anger. She was violating him.

Binding her arms and legs outstretched with thick rope, he cast a ninjutsu to warp the floorboards over her wrists and ankles. The house itself was half a weapon, with chakra-infused paneling, stashed weapons, disguised traps. He kept them dusted, sharpened in case of an attack.

A hovering necklace of kunai levitated above her throat with another series of hand seals. Nervousness chewed at the back of his head but he brushed it away. He dispelled the genjutsu, poised to strike.

"Getting rusty," Sakura said. She peeled her eyes open but didn't flinch in her binds.

Sasuke bristled. He wasn't sure if she was referring to herself or to him, perhaps trying to bait him into something rash. He flexed his hands, twisting the rope over her own. She bit back a grimace.

"Your genjutsu never changes. You stick me back in the flower field from when we were both genin. Are you sure you're not the one who wants to go home?"

"They're your weaknesses," he said flatly. "Not mine."

"Right. Yours is assuming everything somehow involves you and sticking your nose into Konoha's business," she said.

"I told you to leave," he said.

She glared and the floorboards above her wrists cracked. Sasuke didn't move, but the ring of kunai surrounding her throat shot forward, almost touching her skin. She blew a wisp of pink hair from where it stuck to the edge of her mouth.

Sasuke knelt near her hips as the floorboards re-grew over the rope.

"Get away from me," she hissed. He ignored her and reached to untie her weapon belt.

"What are you doing?" she nearly growled.

"Being weak," he shot back, his Sharingan flashing.

She closed her eyes and turned away.

Deftly unhooking the belt and hopping back, he rummaged through until he found what he had searched for –– the scroll. Also as expected, the interior ink was disguised and made invisible. Sasuke quirked a brow. With a lift of a finger, one of the kunai drifted down to Sakura's exposed shoulder, tracing a tight, precise line into her skin to draw blood.

Sakura cursed at him and thrashed and the surrounding kunai inched closer to her throat, pressing little indentations into the skin. Sasuke swiped his thumb over the thin stream of blood and watched the ink of the scroll bloom.

But no message of criminals or goals, no portraits of a younger version of himself appeared. Only a single word, scrawled in a rough kanji that he instinctively recognized as Kakashi's, the familiarity of old, sarcastic apology notes for tardiness or absence scratching at a scar in his brain –– "Rest," it simply said, poised in the center of the scroll.

"What is this?" Sasuke asked.

"A scroll," she deadpanned.

He turned the script around. Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Shinobi blood is too common," she said.

Sasuke tossed the scroll aside. "Not if you're good."

Sakura arched a brow but pressed her mouth into a line.

"'Rest,'" Sasuke said. Even with his tone unshakably even, Sakura knew he meant to mock her.

"My mission has nothing to do with you," she repeated. Her face clenched in reluctant frustration. "Neither does my . . . adjournment."

Sasuke snorted. Sakura sank back, a little surprised. He almost seemed relaxed.

"A kunoichi on vacation." He strode toward her and crossed his arms. His Sharingan glinted in the streaming sun. "Alone," he added.

"I'll find the scroll," he said as if an afterthought. "The longer you withhold it from me, the worse it will be."

"Why care?" she asked. "Why not let me go?"

"Because even if your mission was not to find me, your duty is to report any and all extraordinary events to the Hokage," he said.

She simply stared.

Feeling satisfied, he crouched closer. He posed his elbows on his knees, clasping his fingers together in front of his nose.

"The scroll," he said.

Sakura leaned toward the kunai. They all pricked the initial layer of her skin and small beads of blood began to encircle their sharp points.

The edges of Sasuke's mouth crinkled slightly, frowning. He flash stepped away from her, moving to the back of the house. Sakura listened closely to his footsteps, trying to trace the direction. She heard a room door slide open roughly.

"Die then," he called. The door shifted back to close, the sound reverberating as if he had struck her across the face.

But Sakura smiled. Despite the years of flailing between progress and failure, there remained a constant in her knowledge as a kunoichi: men had egos. Egos were predictable.

She inched away from the half-moon of kunai and watched as they reciprocated, increasing the distance between themselves and her throat. A smirk fell over her lips.

It was not the first time Sasuke underestimated her. But it would be the last.

She expected the sword to the throat when she appeared at his bedroom door minutes later, knocking politely on the silky wood of the doorframe. He was livid, she knew, his eyes burning.

"I have a proposition for you," she said.

Sasuke's glare hardened. He pushed forward until Sakura's back hit the wall of the hallway across from his door. He avoided looking at the little pearls of dried blood embellishing her throat.

"You can see the scroll," she said, not flinching from her straight-spined stance. "See for yourself that my mission has nothing to do with you."

He grunted. "And then?"

"Then let me do my duty. I complete my mission, I go home."

His chin lowered, pressing closer.

She held his gaze. "No one needs to know."

"But you will always know." Sasuke flipped the katana from her throat to her lips in an instant, pressing the flat edge of the blade against her mouth. Sakura could taste the metal, the clean iron of polish or blood or both. Despite her front, her stomach churned. He's so fast.

"We cannot trust one another," Sasuke said.

Sakura moved to speak, but his pressure on the katana increased, shoving the back of her head against the wall.

"You have leverage. I do not."

She stared. He looked back, hard, as if decrypting something hidden in the center of her being, somewhere far beneath the surface of her face. They stayed like that for some minutes.

"Where are you staying?" he asked, breaking the silence, almost gentle. He slid the katana to the side at an obscure angle, resting it between her jaw and left ear, his wrist angled toward the wall.

"Along the river bank on the west side of town, in a tree," she said. As if anticipating his next question, she added, "It's a nice tree. Very large."

His narrowed glare was enough for her to drop the sarcasm.

"The only motel is too close to my primary persons of interest," she confessed begrudgingly.

"The bakery," he said. She was almost surprised. She forgot he had been tracking her.

"You know them?"

"I did not say that." He glanced down the hallway as if someone was listening, then back to her. "The town is small, as you noticed. I know the woman who owns it. She is unfriendly."

"Two peas in a pod," she mumbled. Sasuke pressed the blade against her jaw.

"I kid," she said, scowling.

Sasuke mumbled something under his breath. 'Annoying,' if she had to guess.

"What business do you have with her?"

"Some band of thieves who robbed the local government of their money have been hitching rides to Iwa to trade cash for manpower. I have to speak to all of the local business owners about their financial correspondence with the government in order to verify the amount of money being stolen, as well as identify who the 'leak' is."

Sasuke's gaze narrowed as she spoke.

"Once I know who to target, I will intercept the group, disband them, and report home." Sakura made an effort not to swallow and keep her eyes forward.

"Rank?"

"B." With a puff, the scroll appeared in her hands. She held it out to Sasuke, glancing down from the arched position of her head and neck. Her eyebrow twitched as if daring him to check her statement for accuracy. He plucked it from her grasp.

He glanced back toward her with a veiled look. Something like a sneer glimmered underneath. "You lack negotiation skills. Perhaps that is why you never surpassed chūnin."

"A good jounin knows when to keep her cards close and when to fold," Sakura said, avoiding unnecessary emphasis on her rank. She held back the desire to reach out and smack the smug look off of his face. The less Sasuke thought she was capable of, the better.

It borderline offended her that he believed she was gullible enough to hand over the real mission scroll to a wanted nukenin, much less the most wanted nukenin in all of Leaf. She forged a copy of every scroll she received since the war ended and villages scrapped for one another for any piece of information capable of blackmail. Debts needed to be paid and no one had the funds. Leverage, as Sasuke mentioned, was everything.

Which was why she refused to give him any.

The phony scroll framed her mission as an intermediate espionage assignment. She was to spy on the town, track all movements of the looting band (who had been falsely reported as traveling back and forth between this small town and Iwa, smuggling supplies to their hometown forces), and prevent them from executing their next planned robbery on the nearest mercenary town in two months time. All information regarding Koto's identity, his odd parentage and uncooperative grandmother were absolved.

Sasuke read through the scroll quickly, making it vanish with a handful of signs on his free hand.

"You are lying," he said. Sakura didn't budge.

"If there were a group of criminals, I would be aware of them," he said.

"Interrogate me if it makes you feel better," she said.

"I already have. You are lying." In a moment, the katana is pulled back and thrust into the meat of her front deltoid. She let out a small gasp of pain, trying to reign in the shock.

He was testing her.

Setting her blazing green eyes forward, she leaned into the sword despite the pain. Sasuke remained steady as the distance between them shrank slightly.

"If I was lying you would have killed me already. No hesitation," she said. She bit through the sensation of her muscles shredding beneath the blade. She heard a faint chirping. Chidori was building in Sasuke's palm. Mental resolve was slipping from her like thawing ice.

"If I die here, then you'll have to start all over," she said, practically bursting. Sasuke's face twitched the faintest degree. She pressed on. "I won't tell them, but if you kill me, someone will find me, someone will figure out–"

"No one can trace your chakra if you are scattered ashes."

Sakura blanched. She closed her eyes and exhaled shakily.

"I can guarantee you that I will forget," she said.

Sasuke's frustration only grew. "Enough of this–"

"I can forget," Sakura repeated, eyes flying open and searing into him. The diamond on her forehead seemed to pulse in violet desperation.

His silence encouraged her to elaborate.

"If I can guarantee you that I will not remember ever seeing you, will you let me complete this mission?" Sakura asked. Wetness trickled beneath her skirt, matting the cotton of her vest. Everything was becoming hazier and heavier and all very quickly. She dropped her voice to above a rasp. "Just let me go home, Sasuke."

The chidori dissipated but he didn't remove the sword from her shoulder.

Nodding once, harsh and sharp, he swiveled the hilt of his katana to obscure the line of sight between them. With a twist, he promised, "The moment you falter, I will kill you. And Naruto will be next."

Collapsing in a heap against the wall as he stalked away, she immediately clamored to apply pressure to her shoulder. He'd nicked a major artery and the blood was beginning to flow more profusely than Sakura anticipated. Sasuke was a precise fighter. The thought made her flush white, not that she had expected mercy – he had really prepared to kill her.

And maybe she took Tsunade-shishou's gambling lessons a little too close to heart.

In the dark hallway, the green orb of her healing chakra threw a ghastly light over the walls, mingling with the little threads of sunlight emerging from the opening to the living room. She counted the heartbeats pulsing under her fingertips. Healing herself had become something automatic, akin to deep stretching or training for endurance. An intersection of meditation and fighting. But the lack of blood made her concentration foggy, a rippling curtain of silk slipping over and out of her grasp. The sinews of her shoulder muscle reconnecting felt like restringing a cello, delicately repairing and securing and smoothing over. Each passed under the pad of her finger as if she was knocking a raindrop from a slip of paper. The precision threatened her with a tedious irritation, but she closed her eyes and tried to emulate the pull of gravity, tried to meld herself into the sturdy wood of the wall.

Across from her was the bedroom, the door still slightly ajar. The sheets were tidy and pulled flat. Blankets folded at the edge of the mattress. A sleek dresser, tidy white curtains tucked neatly in pleats and secured at the edge of the window's frame. It filled her tired mind with a simultaneous panic and relief: Sasuke hadn't suspected discovery. He wasn't hiding. All this time, the thought berated her as her energy suspended and collapsed, the blood hardening in a rusty stream down the slopes of her torso and sticking to the threads of her blouse, he had wandered through the streets uncovered, unknown, and without worry.

And what was worse? That they had missed him despite the years of searching, or that he had forgotten to be afraid of being found? Perhaps he never was. Sakura would muse at night about the prospect of finding him again slinking about, living beneath rocks like some sickly beetle. The first time she had seen him at Orochimaru's hideout so many years ago, the flash of the sunlight taking over her and then giving way to a newer, broader, stronger Sasuke . . . and later, during the war, when he fought briefly beside them. She had felt so vindicated. Their victory was so deserved. But then the Ten Tails vanished and so did he, out into the same tangled mysterious horizon from which he had appeared.

Was he hiding here, all this time, so close to home? Sakura scanned the floorboards and walls. The pale stains of the hardwood. The glossiness of the walls, as if freshly painted. Everything shimmering and new and clean. And her, dirty, bleeding on the floor.

The green orbs flickered and faded. The house fell quiet save for the sound of her own breathing brimming in her ears. She left the hallway tentatively, searching for something. Sasuke, or –– her stomach pitched as she rounded the corner into the living room –– some food. Soreness began spreading around the new heal, the buzz of the chidori-laced katana settling in the back of her mind like a nest of bees.

Sasuke was not here, but his clones were. One of them at each entry point, the front and back doors. Each sat with their legs folded across their lap, arms relaxed, eyes closed. It was as if they were meditating by default. Even if it were an alternate universe where she lacked chakra reading abilities, they were too obviously clones, participating in a behavior so uncharacteristically peaceful.

Sakura approached the one lounging near the back door, adjacent to the kitchen. It's eyes snapped open, oddly discolored, to her dismay, with one Rinnegan and one Mangekyou Sharingan.

"You are not permitted to leave," they said in unison. The one by the back door was far enough away to suffer a slight auditory lag.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "As if clones could stop me," she muttered.

"I will return for you within the day," they said, then shut their eyes once more.

"And what am I supposed to do? Sit here and paint my nails?"

The clones did not reply. She took another experimental step forward and groaned when their eyes flashed open once more.

"You are not permitted to leave," they repeated.

She stormed into the kitchen. She rummaged. She threw a bit of a tantrum, if she were being honest with herself, and took out her frustrations on a bowl of plump tomatoes bordering into overripeness, and a filet of some white fish that Sasuke appeared to have caught and cleaned a day or two before. The knife dropped through the skin with luscious ease. She julienned the fruit, mostly because she was fantasizing that the slices were his fingers, but she would settle for the smaller pieces.

Stooping to grab a pan from a lower cabinet, she went to work with sauteing, the air of the house filling with the light fragrance of caramelizing skin, the velveteen depth of umami from a splash of sesame oil, soy sauce, lemon. There was rice left, still granular and chewy, in the pot from what she assumed was his morning breakfast. She tossed it in. For some reason, when reaching to the clean side of the sink to grab a recently cleaned dish, she grew warm as if blushing.

Settling into one of the stools lined up along the kitchen island. There were three, she noticed with a wrinkle of her nose bridge. Curious, she thought.

She tried not to get swept up in the domesticity of it. Only an hour ago he had her pinned against the wooden slats of his hallway. Now she was grilling his fish, eating his tomatoes. Glancing at her surroundings, the plainness, she attempted to ignore the clones and focused instead of the meal. On its simplicity and flavor. The tomatoes tasted fresh. Deceptively fresh. If he had a garden . . .?

A chopstick slipped from her grasp and clamored onto the plate.

She hated this.

She threw the other chopstick toward the clone at the back door, watching it ruffle the choppy hair falling over the false Sasuke's right ear. The chopstick planted into the door. The clone's eyes snapped open, scanning.

"You are not permitted to leave," they both said.

"Who's got the skills of a chunin now," she muttered to herself. "Better guard dogs than clones." But she drifted off, stabbing the fish with her sole chopstick, watching the flesh flake into bits.

A rage brewed in her stomach. She shoved the plate to the side, her appetite lost. Trapping her. That was the grand plan. To trap her in a cage and tap on the glass and watch her squirm like a little mouse.

A storm cloud seemed to pass over her, merging with her disposition. Snakes ate mice.

Leaving a mess in the sink just to give Sasuke another thing to blister over, she stalked back toward the hallway. She tore through the bedroom as best as she could without disrupting the frail order of Sasuke's things. She rummaged through each dresser, each shelf and slit between furniture and wall. Uncertain of what she was searching for but sure it was there, nonetheless.

Sakura believed in signs. She wasn't religious, but signs, coincidences, patterns that bled across different facets of life: these she clung to. The three stools by the kitchen island felt heavy-handed, she would admit, but the house reeked of unfinished business in the little time she had stepped inside. The whole town did. She should have known from the wave of nostalgia that cascaded over her that first day in the forest as she let the river flow through the threads of her clothes. She shouldn't have shrugged the instinct away.

She should have stabbed him in the street. She should have grabbed him by the face and made him bleed from every orifice, made him scream the way she had in her nightmares in which he punished her endlessly, caught in the Infinite Tsukuyomi, spinning eternally down a tunnel of teeth and black blood and Naruto's begging echoing all around her like a sonic wave. She should have been ruthless in the way he always said she could never be, would never be capable of.

She should have hugged him. She should have apologized and left the village and renounced her mission and made herself small, of service.

She should have never come.

Then –– a realization hit her like a punch to the stomach.

She soared into the living room and let her kunai fly on reflex. The clones, caught off guard, vanished easily. Their last words were lost to the wind as she raced out of the house and back toward town, all the while her head pounding, berating her.

She should have known better.


	6. Chapter 6

Sasuke must have known she would leave and Sakura knew he would track her. But if her recent epiphany was correct, the situation would be irreversible. Sasuke would be permanently involved.

The bakery was not empty this time. It was bustling. A pre-dinner time rush to grab the last few loaves and flaking pastries was in full operation. A man hopped from the stoop of the shop as Sakura approached, trailing past a line that hugged the front wall. He tore the edge of the baguette he held with his teeth and chewed loudly as he waddled past Sakura, the parchment wrapper crinkling in his hand. The windows were glowing orange like the inside of an oven and silhouetted the line of customers shuffling slowly forward in the queue. Sakura headed around back to avoid too much attention.

The alley carried noise toward her. Some of it was a simple miscellaneous rustling, polluting her concentration. Through it, she could pinpoint Yuri's gruff voice –– "how many? This one? Three of them? Just two? I'm giving you three, you'll want them," and the customers' polite, terse attempts to place their orders with Akami. They asked constantly if she understood what they said. Sakura imagined her dark red bun bobbing, strands knocking loose in a nervous rush to shove bread into paper bags and seal them with pretty twine knots.

She couldn't sense Sasuke nearby, but that meant next to nothing. She shoved the thought of him away. He would appear when he wanted to and she had to make up for what time was already lost.

Throwing up a subtle henge, just enough to tweak her features toward normalcy, she stepped through the back door and made her way behind the counter, plucking an apron from the doorway for good measure. She avoided Yuri and Akami's startled expressions at her appearance and focused on the lagoon of waiting customers. They didn't question her sudden presence; they pointed happily to bread and cookies, shoved yen into her waiting hands while fielding phone calls from their spouses at home.

When the crowd cleared, she fetched a broom from the back and busied herself with sweeping. Yuri counted money behind the counter and scowled.

"What's all this, then?" the old woman asked.

"Ninjas can be helpful, too. Not just pains." She kept her eyes glued to the accumulating pile of breadcrumbs and dirt by her feet. She dropped the henge, too, and chose not to wink at Yuri's momentary look of shock.

"Help is a pain, too. Means you're going to want something for giving it."

The cash register chirped as Yuri pushed the neat stacks of bills inside, jotting numbers down on a clipboard. Once she finished, she leaned on the glass display case, sizing the kunoichi up.

"I don't like you," the old woman said. "I've got no patience for people who beat around the bush."

Sakura stood up straight, the worn end of the broom pressing into her palm. "Is that why you set me up?"

Yuri didn't quite blanch, but she stayed quiet.

"Why cooperate and incriminate yourself when you could send me off to get killed? That's what you thought."

"He's never killed anybody," Yuri shot back, but then seemed unsure. Sakura raised an eyebrow.

"Whatever. If he has, it's none of my business. You're trouble and he's trouble –– that's all I know. So I sent you off to pester someone of your own kind," she turned to stalk off into the back room where Sakura could hear Akami kneading dough. "You wanted to know about Koto, anyways."

Sakura wasn't as fast as Sasuke, but she was fast enough to block the doorway with her body before Yuri could stroll through.

"What did you say?" Sakura asked calmly.

The old woman fumed. "Stupid, stupid ninja girl. You think you can come up in my shop and push me around?" Yuri raised her hand as if to strike Sakura, but the kunoichi blocked her and grabbed her wrist loosely.

"Why would the man who owns that cabin know anything about Koto?" Sakura asked, flexing her fingers around the old woman's wrist in warning.

"I don't know him –– okay! I don't know that lurking, weird idiot. Never met him. All I know is when Koto started messing around, getting in trouble, he would leave before we opened the shop and wouldn't come back until he knew we were busy prepping for the next morning. We paid to get him followed, a pretty penny for an old wretch like me, mind you, so don't say I never did nothing for the kid –– and they said he was always with that black-haired fellow."

Sakura stared, knowing there was more. Yuri rolled her eyes.

"Fine, okay! Fine. I met him once. He dropped Koto off and the kid's arms were bandaged up, his face all bruised. I may have followed him down the road and yelled at him a little." Her face blistered with agitation at the memory of it, and Sakura tried to mimic the image of him that was probably playing in Yuri's head –– a young boy, without the wolverine mask, quaking and bruised beside Sasuke, who wouldn't even look the child in the eye.

"I wanted to know what the hell my own grandson was getting up to. Koto talked about him all the time, but he didn't even know his name. He just called him 'sensei.' He didn't say nothing to me when I ran after him and tried to clobber him over the head with my rolling pin. Didn't threaten me or anything, but I could tell he was evil. Who wouldn't be with eyes that black? I could tell he was a ninja, too, with that gaudy sword hanging off his hip. This is a civilian village –– you said it yourself –– and we don't need ninja kind around here. So yeah, I thought maybe I'd get lucky and you'd rip one another to shreds."

The old woman huffed, seeming worn and surprised and relieved, simultaneously, at the deft of her confessions. Yuri tried to yank her wrist from Sakura's grip and the kunoichi let her. Absentmindedly, she brushed extra flour from the front of her apron, grumbling.

It was Sakura's turn to blanch. She could tell Yuri was lying about some part of it from the way her eyes roamed, though she wasn't sure which. She didn't think it was the part about Koto and Sasuke, which was the part she most wished to be untrue.

"Did Koto ever say anything about him?" Sakura asked. Her voice dropped instinctively to almost a whisper.

"I told you what I know." Yuri sucked on her teeth and glared.

"If you're withholding information––"

"What are you gonna do? Blow up my store?" Yuri poked at a fading bruise on the inside of Sakura's left elbow. "I can tell he didn't take too kindly to you anyhow. Maybe I should let him know you've been sticking your nose around here. If I can't get rid of both of you, I could at least get rid of one. And he doesn't talk damn near as much."

Sakura chewed the inside of her cheek and glanced out the window before turning back to the old woman. It was astonishing, reviewing the information she'd gathered over the past few days, how much Yuri's demeanor had changed. She grew cruder with every interaction. It was obvious she was hiding details, but things were becoming more convoluted. It hurt her head to think about untangling the pile of strings that connected one suspicious person to another.

The old woman shoved her way past Sakura and signed to Akami, who turned around and jumped at the sight of them in the doorway. Akami kept glancing between her mother's dancing hands and Sakura, who looked suddenly gaunt as if she had seen a ghost. The young woman's face crumpled as her mother's explanation unfolded of what had occurred. Sakura wondered which part she was most upset about: her treatment of Yuri, Koto, or even Sasuke. Who knew how involved he had become with this family. The thought made her stomach roll, though she didn't give herself the chance to imagine why. At the sight of Akami's budding tears, she ducked out of the shop, tossing her dusty apron on the glass display case. The sky had settled into a cool evening, a slight breeze carrying the smell of the flowing river over her, the setting sun's last trickle of light blazing against the face of the looming clock tower.

So she had been wrong. About most of it. About almost all of it. Sasuke was part of the mission, even if she didn't want him to be. The most impossible person of interest. How was she supposed to interrogate him? Gleen any sort of information from his rotted, narcissistic, lethally-guarded head? A groan fell from her mouth as she slapped her forehead. How was she supposed to fend off the inevitable temper tantrum he had waiting for her when they found one another? Underneath the mounting concerns was one that made her a little breathless, too: that he had gone on to raise a criminal of his own. That he might know the severity of the situation and be sitting on it gleefully, if he was capable of feeling such a thing.

She watched the dirt path sprinkle dust onto her toes as she trudged back toward his home in the woods. The leaves cooed in the wind at her, whispering little harmonies. A loose leaf twirled down and landed by her foot. She thumbed its satin, green face as she walked.

It would be better to turn herself in than wait for him to find her, she told herself. It might help later in justifying her position to him, whatever it was going to be.

And what was it going to be? She had already lied. Admitting the truth would do her no good because it would only reassure Sasuke she could not be trusted. Involving him would be complicated, anyhow. He would be guilty and immediately suspicious that she would drag him back to Konoha for punishment. And she might have to, in that case, if he was truly guilty. She gulped –– if that was what her duty commanded.

No. It was better to keep him in the dark. To get close to the hunter without standing in the path of the arrow. But how was she supposed to get Sasuke to talk? To confess? The most silent person she had ever known was now her primary informant. She cursed and threw the green leaf to the ground in tattered shreds.

On the slow trek back toward the cottage, the most outlandish strategies entered her mind. She could try to capture him, torture him for information, give him a taste of his own medicine. She could call for reinforcements and risk an all-out battle. She could injure herself and return to Konoha and request Kakashi send someone else, anyone else.

She could befriend him. She could learn his secrets.

A dark, masochistic laugh cut through the quiet air. As if he would ever trust her enough to get that close. She couldn't even ask him how his day was when they were teammates without a surly glare in reply.

There was no right answer. She had to fess up or buck up for the fight of her life. But the last idea still wiggled in the back of her mind like a loose plank of wood.

Espionage was espionage. There was no such thing as an uncrackable nut. And she out of anyone knew how to manipulate the brain and body, to leech what she needed from those who were more iron than flesh and blood. She had cracked Shikamaru into tearfully confessing his love for Temari before he fled to Suna to raise the orphaned child that was probably his own daughter, when years before he refused to acknowledge the little crying baby. She cracked Sai into becoming more human, or at least human-adjacent, shaking him of his Root upbringing. She had cracked Neji into loving her, however briefly, before he left her for TenTen and died on a bloody battlefield.

It was still a stupid notion. It was still just as likely to get her killed. But, as the outline of the cottage pressing into its cloaking waves of vines grew nearer, it was the only option that seemed to make sense.

Sakura approached him where he waited on the gently sloping grass behind the house, cross-legged on a worn tree stump he used to chop firewood. She held her hands up in surrender, waving a white flower, its stem wobbly and limp.

"I come in peace," she said, her voice carrying over the yard.

Sasuke was displeased. He made no effort in hiding it. Rampant, angry chakra was sparking the air around him, like air licked by lightning.

She stopped a few feet from him and threw the white flower in his direction. If he could be angrier, somehow, her nonchalance was propelling him in that direction. Everything was not a satire. Life was not a satire. If she hadn't learned this, he would teach her. Quickly.

"I have a question," he said, which seemed to miff her.

"Alright," she responded, pulling her hair into a rubber band. He could tell she wanted to say more.

"I've been thinking of how I will kill you." He paused to look at her although he could see her flashing annoyance in his periphery. "But first. What you said earlier."

"The part about peace? Or when you were reprimanding me for my 'kunoichi vacation?'"

"Forgetting." He straightened from his stooped slouch on the grass and turned to observe her fully. "How will you forget?"

She swallowed and crossed her arms, her hands hugging her elbows as if a chilly wind had passed. The night air was sticky and still.

"It's an old-school technique. Forbidden jutsu, mind-manipulation kind of old school." Sakura shrugged and studied the weeds curling against the underbelly of Sasuke's back patio, tendrils slipping through cracks like little fingers.

He watched her, guarded, encouraging her to continue.

"Tsunade-shishou taught it to me as a last ditch effort. In case I was captured."

He grunted and looked away.

"How does it work?" he asked, voice low.

"You know. Brain stuff?"

The kusanagi lay beside him. It glinted in the moonlight. Sasuke could see Sakura's heavy swallow. The pale shelf of her jaw clenched, her face turning to survey the backyard. He watched her spot the small piles of neatly stacked firewood, the humble garden. Cucumbers were peeking up from the still and coquettish where they bask beneath blooming yellow flowers, which were shutting under the rising moonlight. What she couldn't see: the greenhouse obscured beneath a sea of kudzu a quarter mile away, surrounded by finely lined rows of buried, sprouting seeds and plants and fruits. The lemon, nashi, and persimmon trees tucked into corners of the property. The bunker, untouched, that lay beneath them, full of hard metal weapons. Sasuke stared at the glow of her skin, at her absorbing eyes, and his fingers itched to touch them and make them bleed.

He grunted again. She turned back toward him, sighing.

"Even if I knew, I couldn't tell you, obviously," she said.

"But you will," Sasuke said. He brushed the handle of the kusanagi like caressing a lover. "You always find a way to tell me, despite yourself."

He heard her traipsing across the grass. His grip on the kusanagi tightened. Flashing, the blade was suddenly in the air, touching Sakura's throat as she stood only a few feet away. Slowly, with the blade following her, she sat directly across from him.

"Try me," she said. Sasuke raised his eyebrow just barely.

Sakura scoffed and leveled with him. The way her lips curled—too close to a sneer, for his comfort. Maybe she had changed more than he'd like to believe. Then again, he doubted it.

"You're so certain I'm hiding something. Try me. You'll see I have nothing to hide." Sakura leaned closer, the kusanagi tipping back toward Sasuke, without threat. "I know you're dying to."

"What is this?" Sasuke asked. He let his Sharingan flash.

"It's called 'facilitating trust.' I'm sure you're unfamiliar."

He hated this. The casualness. When had she become so brazen? In a second he'd have her knocked on her back, pinned, with the kusanagi slashed across her throat. But she knew this—she knew all of this. They were hardly unseasoned strangers. What was this game, this recklessness?

The genjutsu had been fruitless before, even if he wouldn't admit it out loud. If she were truly a jounin now, the prodigy of her own Sannin, it'd be a difficult barrier to break without making a substantial mess of things. He could kill her quietly, at the cost of learning nothing, living in the dark, hoping, uselessly, they wouldn't trace her back here. Luck was not a friendly god to him.

He was realizing now, in the face of persistence, how loose the leash had really become. How much slack he gave himself over the years, how much he had relaxed. It felt criminal to admit, even to himself, that he might really be harboring even a grain of panic and fear.

At the end of his sword, her face was bright, openly curious. She wanted this. Why did she want this?

"You will never earn my trust," Sasuke said evenly.

"It's never stopped me from trying before." She never missed a beat.

"Then try." He nudged the kusanagi's tip into the fold of her throat. "Let's start with the 'brain stuff.'"

"On one condition."

Sasuke snarled. "You are not in a position to negotiate."

"I need your help," Sakura said, quickly. She seemed to capitalize on his brief pause. "We both want the same thing. Me, out of here, and you, here. Both of us apart and oblivious to the other."

Reluctantly, he gave a small noise of acknowledgment.

"Then help me complete my mission." A smile was brewing on her face. She looked like a gumdrop, a sickly sweet doll with candied eyes. Bloodlust boiled inside of him. He pounced, grabbed her throat with his free hand and pinned her to the nearest tree ten yards away.

"You are deranged," he seethed, eyes pulsing and blood red. He could see the most minute twitches of her features. She was not scared. She had anticipated this. It only made him angrier.

"How do you lose here? You want to know what I'm up to. You want to track my every move. You want me gone, you want to guarantee your safety, you want your cake in your pocket and in your hand and in your mouth. You want nothing to do with me but want everything to do with getting rid of me." She panted against his chokehold, her hair fluttering above her parted mouth. Her teeth glinted with the same slick shine as the sword in his periphery. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "It's just a little recon, Sasuke. That's all it will take."

He slammed her head back onto the tree trunk and pitched closer, his mouth brushing her nose, eyes baring down. "You will never earn my trust."

"Then we do this every day, every night until we kill each other."

"You will lose."

"Maybe. But I haven't tried yet." Her eyes fleeted over his face. "Haven't noticed that yet, have you? I never attacked you. I never laid on a hand on you except in defense."

"You miscalculate threats. That is not my—"

Sakura laughed. "Tell yourself I'm stupid, Sasuke, instead of strategic. Whatever makes you feel better." She tipped her chin up, making his throat more available for his tightening hold. She added her own hand on top of his, doubling the pressure, and her touch stung in a way he didn't expect—unphysical, deeper, beneath his skin.

"Tell yourself I'm stupid and kill me and wonder what it was all about," she rasped beneath their gradually interlocking fingers. Sasuke could feel the tension on his face changing, tightening into something else. In the vastness of the backyard lit up in moonlight, he felt like the corners of the world were pressed against his back.

He crashed his forehead into hers as hard as he could. She went limp, once again, beneath his hands.

He locked the door from the inside and left through the window, ignoring Sakura's unconscious form on the unrolled sleeping mat he nicked from her pack. Every step he took away from the window, stalking around the perimeter of his cottage, made him feel sicker, lonelier, more foolish.

When she woke up, he knew she would find him. With the door locked from the inside, though, he could at least stop himself from killing her in a fit of frustration—or giving himself an extra five-second delay, at least. He could give himself time to think about the decision he'd only half made.

He didn't have to peek into the spare room to know how she appeared: a bruise coloring the majority of her throat, tattered clothes, covered in dirt, frozen and unconscious. Blood trickling from her eyebrow to her chin. Strawberry-pink hair cascading all over his floor, his things, infecting his life. She was a parasite. She was sucking the life out of him, sucking it away from him.

He stormed through the back door of his house, flash-stepping into his bathroom and white-knuckling the edge of his sink while a hot shower muddied the mirror with steam. He couldn't look at himself, anyhow, this weak creature he'd become. He'd seen too much of Sakura. He was getting weak, mawkish. That was the only explanation for why he let her live instead of slaying her as she dangled between his hands. His useless, useless hands.

And what to say. She would be out for a day at most, maybe two if he cast another genjutsu. The thought alone made him sag with exhaustion. The resounding click of the latch unlocking, the door sliding back to reveal her drowsy, satisfied stare, knowing she had gotten to him. She had gotten to him and he had let her live.

He looked up into the mirror, the hazy blackness of his outline. He wondered if he, too, was littered with blood and scratches. He wondered how she was already marking him, changing him, like poison.

But she would not feed on him without sacrificing something. There was more to give, he sensed, beneath her careful charade of brash nonchalance. Even if she weren't here for him, she would doubtlessly try and drag him back to that cursed place of leaves and familiarity.

He just needed to discover what she was really here for before then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The new chapter should be out by the end of this month. As always, reviews are deeply appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, thank you! I hope you enjoyed it. If you have a second to leave a review, I would appreciate it more than you know.


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